Terror Attack on OPEC Headquarters in Vienna Anniversary

It was a Sunday morning when six terrorists disembarked from a tram at Vienna's Schottentor on December 21, 1975, and stormed the OPEC building. The subsequent hostage-taking of around 70 people during the OPEC ministerial conference kept Austria and the entire world on edge for two days in the days before Christmas 50 years ago.

The terror commando shot three people and forced the reading of an anti-Israeli statement on the radio before fleeing with a hijacked plane and several dozen hostages. The group, calling itself the "Arm of the Arab Revolution," was led by the Venezuelan top terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, alias Carlos. Libya was suspected to be the mastermind behind the action. In addition to three Palestinians, the commando also included the two German left-wing extremists Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann and Hans-Joachim Klein.

Dead and Injured

At 11:45 a.m. on December 21, 1975, the six terrorists stormed the OPEC building on Dr.-Karl-Lueger-Ring (today: Universitätsring), where the oil ministers of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) were debating oil prices. An Austrian policeman and an Iraqi security officer were killed. The body of the third victim - a Libyan delegate - was only found after the terrorists had withdrawn. During the police's attempt to storm the building, an Austrian criminal investigator and the German terrorist Klein were injured.

With explosives and hand grenades, the hostage-takers threatened to blow up the building and demanded the provision of an AUA aircraft. In the six-and-a-half-page communiqué, which had to be read on the radio in French, the group criticized the peace policies of some Arab states towards Israel, declared Iran an agent of American imperialism, and demanded the nationalization of oil. The terrorists also regretted having to make Austria the scene of the event. If the conditions were not met, the hostage-takers threatened to shoot hostages every 15 minutes. The German terrorist Klein, who had suffered an abdominal gunshot wound, was taken to Vienna General Hospital (AKH).

After tough negotiations, Chancellor Bruno Kreisky (SPÖ) decided in the night of December 22 to allow the terrorists to fly out. On the morning of December 22, a postal bus was ready in front of the OPEC building and took the commando and 33 hostages to Vienna-Schwechat Airport, where the severely injured Klein was also brought from the AKH. The OPEC employees residing in Austria had been released earlier. Originally, around 70 people - including eleven oil ministers from OPEC countries - had been taken hostage. It later caused a stir and criticism that the terrorist Carlos bid farewell to Austrian Interior Minister Otto Rösch (SPÖ) with a handshake at Vienna Airport. "Thank you very much for the smooth processing," the German daily newspaper "Die Welt" commented on the scene with a touch of sarcasm.

DC-9 Aircraft Provided

With the provided DC-9 aircraft, the terrorists first flew to Algeria, where the non-Arab hostages were released. At the second stop in Tripoli, the oil ministers of Algeria and Libya were freed. In Algiers, where the terrorists landed again on December 23, the last two hostages - the Saudi Arabian and Iranian oil ministers - were finally released. It is believed that large sums of ransom were paid. The terrorists later traveled unimpeded to Libya, the country of their suspected sponsor, Muammar al-Gaddafi, who was overthrown and killed in 2011 after decades in power.

Klein, who was only arrested after more than 20 years underground, later testified that the attack was indeed a joint action by the Palestinian liberation movement and the German Revolutionary Cells. However, the idea, weapons, and information came from Libya. The OPEC member country wanted to force the other member countries "to show more solidarity with the Palestinians" through the hostage-taking of the ministers, according to Klein.

The attack was the first of its kind for Austria and caught the security authorities completely unprepared. The government had not expected that OPEC, which had moved from Geneva to Vienna in July 1965, could be attacked. Security precautions were minimal. Kreisky later admitted a "decisive mistake," as OPEC was considered the "least endangered institution."

Carlos Imprisoned in France

Carlos was tracked down and arrested by French officials in Sudan in 1994. He was extradited to France, where the now 76-year-old Venezuelan remains imprisoned to this day. He was never tried in Austria, but in France, he was sentenced to life imprisonment multiple times for various terrorist attacks in France - most recently in 2021 for an attack on a shopping arcade in Paris.

While in prison, Carlos married his now-deceased French lawyer in 2001. He converted to Islam and corresponded with the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Chavez admired "Carlos" as an important revolutionary and one of the strongest fighters for the Palestinian cause. Carlos himself never saw himself as a terrorist, but as a freedom fighter: "Like Lenin. Like Stalin. Like Trotsky. These are professional revolutionaries," he explained in a 2010 interview. He also regarded Osama Bin Laden as a "great revolutionary" and "honorable man." In 2010, director Olivier Assayas filmed the life of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez in the movie "Carlos - The Jackal."

Kröcher-Tiedemann was arrested at the Swiss border in December 1977 and extradited to the Federal Republic of Germany after ten years of imprisonment. However, a Cologne district court acquitted her of the murder charge related to the OPEC attack due to lack of evidence in 1990.

Klein was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2001. His sentence was initially suspended on probation after five years of imprisonment at the end of 2003, and he was pardoned in 2009. Until his death in 2022, Klein lived again in Normandy, where he had already hidden for about 20 years before his arrest. The identity of the three other members of the terror commando - presumably Palestinians - could never be definitively clarified.

(APA/Red)

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