Zvonko Bušić (23 January 1946 – 1 September 2013) was a Croatian emigrant known for hijacking TWA Flight 355 in September 1976. He was subsequently convicted of air piracy and spent 32 years in prison in the United States before being released on parole and deported in July 2008.

Background

Zvonko Bušić was born in 1946 in Gorica, Herzegovina, FPR Yugoslavia. He finished high school in Imotski. He graduated in Zagreb, and emigrated at the age of 20 to Vienna in order to study Slavistics and History at the University. In Vienna, three years later, in 1969, he met the American student, Julienne Eden Schultz, who was studying German and thereafter became involved in Bušić's political activities. The couple and a friend traveled to Zagreb and threw anti-Yugoslav leaflets from the Ilica skyscraper on Republic Square (now Ban Jelačić Square), after which they were arrested and imprisoned. After her release, Julienne returned to Vienna and in 1972, Julienne and Zvonko married in Frankfurt, and later relocated to the United States.

Hijacking

On 10 September 1976, Zvonko and Zvonko and Julienne Bušić, along with Petar Matanić, and Frane Pešut, hijacked a commercial TWA plane, Boeing 727, Flight 355, heading from New York to Chicago. The mastermind of the hijacking, Zvonko Bušić, delivered a note to the captain in which he informed him that the airplane was hijacked, the group had five gelignite bombs on board, and another bomb was planted in a locker across from the Commodore Hotel in New York with further instructions. The group demanded that the flight go to London.

The principal demand in the locker instructions was that certain propaganda would have to appear in the next day morning's edition of several major American newspapers. If the instructions were followed, the bomb would be deactivated. During the deactivation of the bomb at the New York hotel, an American policeman, Brian Murray, died, and one other officer was wounded. The plane headed for Paris. Thirty passengers were released at a refueling stop in Newfoundland. In Paris, after receiving information that their demands were met, the group surrendered to the French police, which transferred the group to the custody of the FBI.

Trial and imprisonment

Zvonko and Julienne Bušić were charged with and convicted of air piracy resulting in death, which carried a mandatory life sentence with parole eligibility after 10 years. Three years after the trial, Judge John Bartels reduced the sentence, which made both Bušićs eligible for parole at the end of 1979.

On 13 June 1989, Bartels wrote a letter on Zvonko Bušić's behalf to the U.S. Parole Commission, in which he stated that the death of the police officer was partly due to the police's negligence and that he had no objection to Bušić's release. He served a total of 32 years, 19 years longer than his wife.

The widow of Brian Murray (the policeman killed by Bušić's bomb) filed a lawsuit against the responsible police bodies for "gross negligence". In the suit she stated that the police supervisor placed the officers under his command at unnecessary risk by attempting to disassemble the device while ignoring safety procedures, rather than simply detonating it remotely. At a Croatian Parliament session in 2002, a resolution was passed to request transfer of Zvonko Bušić to Croatia, which was forwarded to the Council of Europe.

The U.S. State Department continued to support Busic's incarceration after Croatia gained its independence in 1991. His request for parole was denied in 2006, after service of 30 years, although the others in the group had already been free for at least 17 years. Julienne Bušić was released in 1989. After this parole denial, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, through its Croatian branch, the Croatian Helsinki Committee, launched a campaign to secure his release on humanitarian grounds, arguing that Busic had served out his sentence and therefore should be released.

He spent his last two years of imprisonment at the Communications Management Unit (CMU) in Terre Haute, Indiana, transferred there from Allenwood, Pennsylvania. He was granted parole in July 2008 and turned himself in to immigration authorities for deportation. A condition of his parole was that he could not return to the U.S.

Death

Zvonko Bušić committed suicide on 1 September 2013 by gunshot at his home in Rovanjska near Zadar; he was discovered by his wife. He was 67 years old.