Trials: Intimidating Tactics

In a high-security Dusseldorf courtroom, Lebanon-born Abbas Hamadei went on trial last week in a proceeding watched closely by Western governments. Hamadei, 29, is charged with kidnaping West Germans Rudolf Cordes and Alfred Schmidt in Beirut a year ago. His alleged aim: to bargain for the release of his brother Mohammed, 23, who is awaiting trial in Frankfurt for the June 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet and the murder of one of its passengers, U.S. Navy Diver Robert Stethem.

Abbas Hamadei was captured last January at Frankfurt airport. One of his alleged kidnap victims, Schmidt, has since been released as a "goodwill gesture." As for Cordes, on the eve of the trial his keepers released his photograph along with a note urging West German authorities to "consider what happens in the coming days and draw the consequences." Bonn did not blink. Declared Klaus Arend, the presiding judge: "We would lose sight of our duty if we were to succumb to pressure."