Nezar Hindawi is sentenced to 45 years in prison, the longest sentence handed down by a British court, for the attempted bombing on an El Al flight at Heathrow Airport. After the verdict, the United Kingdom breaks diplomatic relations with Syria, claiming that Hindawi is helped by Syrian officials.
The Hindawi affair was a failed attempt to bomb El Al Flight 016, from London to Tel Aviv in April 1986 by Nezar Nawwaf al-Mansur al-Hindawi (Arabic: نزار نواف منصور الهنداوي, born 1954), a Jordanian.
On the morning of 17 April 1986, at Heathrow Airport in London, Israeli security guards working for El Al airlines found 1.5 kilograms (3.3 lb) of Semtex explosive in the bag of Anne-Marie Murphy, a five-month pregnant Irishwoman attempting to board a flight to Tel Aviv with 375 other passengers. In addition, a functioning calculator in the bag was found to be a timed triggering device. She claimed to be unaware of the contents, and that she had been given the bag by her fiancé, Nezar Hindawi, a Jordanian. Murphy maintained that Hindawi had sent her on the flight for the purpose of meeting his parents before marriage.
A manhunt ensued, resulting in Hindawi's arrest the following day after he surrendered to police. Hindawi was found guilty by the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales and was sentenced to 45 years' imprisonment by Justice William Mars-Jones, believed to be the longest determinate, or fixed, criminal sentence in British history.Hindawi appealed. The Lord Chief Justice upheld the sentence, saying "Put briefly, this was about as foul and as horrible a crime as could possibly be imagined. It is no thanks to this applicant that his plot did not succeed in destroying 360 or 370 lives in the effort to promote one side of a political dispute by terrorism. In the judgment of this Court the sentence of 45 years' imprisonment was not a day too long. This application is refused."