FBI issues age-progressed images of 1986 Pan Am hijack suspects

Washington: The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released new age-progressed images of four suspects in the deadly hijacking of a Pan Am plane in Karachi in 1986.

Twenty passengers and crew, including two US citizens, were killed on September 5 that year when the hijackers took control of Frankfurt-bound Pan Am flight 73 for some 16 hours during a stopover in the southern port megacity.

It came to an end when the hijackers opened fire on passengers and crew, causing Pakistani commandos to storm the plane.

The suspects are believed to belong to Abu Nidal, the group which is designated a terrorist organisation by the US State Department and each of the men -- Wadoud Muhammad Hafiz al-Turki, Jamal Saeed Abdul Rahim, Muhammad Abdullah Khalil Hussain ar-Rahayyal, and Muhammad Ahmed al-Munawar -- is on the FBI´s Most Wanted Terrorists List.

According to a statement posted on the FBI website, images of the suspects obtained in the year 2000 were age-progressed by the FBI Laboratory.

"We´re hoping that with the age-progression photos next to the original photos maybe that will jar some memories or maybe someone has seen these guys walking around," the statement said, quoting a case officer.

The US State Department is also offering a $5 million reward for information leading to their arrest, through its Rewards for Justice Programme.

At a trial held in Pakistan 1988, the four men plus a fifth hijacker, Zaid Hassan Abd Latif Safarini, admitted to having carried out the attack and were given death sentences that were later commuted to life imprisonment.

Safarini was released from prison in Pakistan in 2001 but was quickly arrested by the FBI. In May 2004, a US federal judge in Washington sentenced him to 160 years.

The four other hijackers were released by Pakistan after completing their jail terms in 2008.