One For The Road: The 1978 West German Consulate Hostage Situation
By Chuck Sudo in News on Aug 17, 2012 10:30PM
When one thinks of hostage crises in the late 1970s the one the immediately comes to mind is the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries that lasted 444 days and ended moments after Ronald Reagan was sworn into office. But there was another hostage situation that nearly turned into an international incident that happened in Chicago over a year earlier.
On August 17, 1978 Croatian nationalists Bozo Kelava and Mile Kodzoman entered the West German consulate on Michigan Avenue armed with handguns, ropes and a fake bomb, and proceeded to take six people hostage.
Kevala and Kodzoman did this in order to persuade the West German government from extraditing a fellow Croatian nationalist, Stepan Bilandzic, to Yugoslavia. Bilandzic was a popular anti-Josip Tito dissident and head of the “Popular Resistance Croatian” who based his operations in West Germany. In 1962, he led a group of 25 commandos in storming a Yugoslav trade mission in Bad Godesburg, West Germany. During the late 1970s the Bonn government began deporting Croatian dissidents to Yugoslavia, where they were allegedly tortured and executed. Kevala came to the U.S. in 1969 and became a permanent resident in 1972.
In May 1978 Yugoslav police arrested four West German members of the Red Army Faction in connection with the October 1977 murder of Hans-Martin Schleger. Yugoslav authorities said they would exchange the four for eight Croatian nationalists. But the one they really wanted was Bilandzic.
The Bonn government had made it abundantly clear prior to Kevala’s and Kodzoman’s actions they had no interest in extraditing Bilandzic without further review of his case. They were eventually allowed to speak with Bilandzic after 10-1/2 hours and received assurances from West German authorities this was the case. They were eventually convinced to surrender after speaking with Rev. Paul Maslach of St. Jerome Croatian Church in Bridgeport and Bilandzic’s brother Ivan, who happened to be visiting Maslach at the time. Mayor Michael Bilandic (a Bridgeporter of Croatian heritage) also made an appearance during negotiations.
Kevala and Kodzoman were convicted of conspiracy and kidnapping of foreign officials, but a federal judge ordered a new trial because he forgot to instruct the jury on a lesser charge. The Seventh Circuit Court ruled that the two could only be charged with unarmed imprisonment. Kevala pleaded guilty in January 1980 to the charge and served 2-1/2 years in prison.