Reporters Saw Kidnaped Americans, Paper Says

Reporters for a Kuwaiti newspaper have visited American Presbyterian minister Benjamin Weir and two other Americans kidnaped in Lebanon, the paper, Al Watan, reported Saturday.

The daily said its correspondents visited a basement in a partially built Beirut building in which Weir and two other Americans were held. It did not name the other two.

The Kuwaiti newspaper said a fourth American was being held outside Beirut.

It also published the kidnapers’ terms for the release of the Americans and French kidnaping victims held in Lebanon.

The paper said that the kidnapers wanted the release of “people jailed in Kuwait for the known bombings,” an apparent reference to a wave of blasts in the Persian Gulf state in December, 1983.

The bombings, for which 17 people are being held in jail here, rocked the U.S. and French embassies and several state targets, leaving six dead and over 80 injured.

Al Watan said conditions for release of the French hostages were linked to “a change in France’s attitude to the (Persian) Gulf war.” France has sold Iraq weapons for use against Iran.

The paper did not specify who was holding the prisoners.

Callers in Lebanon claiming ties with the shadowy Islamic Jihad (Holy War) group have said they hold five Americans, a Saudi Arabian diplomat and a number of French and British nationals abducted over the past 16 months. Al Watan made no mention of a fifth U.S. hostage or of Britons.

The hostages were allowed to correspond with their families, the paper said. It reproduced a handwritten note, dated April 10 and signed by Weir--who was abducted last May--to his wife, Carol, and family. It was not clear whether the note had been mailed.

The paper gave no details of the conditions in which the kidnap victims were held. It said particularly close secrecy surrounded the Saudi Arabian diplomat.