Meet Demands, Hostages’ Letter Reportedly Asks

Arab hijackers holding at least 30 Americans aboard a TWA jetliner forced the plane to Beirut for the third time in as many days Sunday and released a letter purportedly signed by the hostages imploring President Reagan to meet the gunmen’s demands.

Amid efforts to negotiate an end to the three-day-old drama, the hijackers--who already have killed one passenger--freed an ailing hostage Sunday.

TWA spokesmen said that 27 to 29 passengers and three crew members--the pilot, his first officer and the flight engineer--remained aboard the Boeing 727 as the hostages of 12 heavily armed men believed to be pro-Iranian Shia Muslims.

Kansan Taken to Hospital

The hijackers allowed an ambulance to take Robert Peel Sr., 59, to American University Hospital. Peel was suffering from what was thought to be fractured ribs he said he had sustained earlier in a boating accident.

The Hutchinson, Kan., man told reporters as he lay on a stretcher at Beirut airport that the plane was “filthy, dirty, a real pig pen.”

“I have not had a meal for three days and only hot water to drink,” he added.

Peel’s wife was released Friday, but he said his 33-year-old son, Robert Jr., was still aboard the plane but was “OK.”

Negotiator for Shias

The leader of the Shia Muslim militia Amal, Nabih Berri, was negotiating in Beirut with a delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross, a U.N. representative, the Lebanese interior minister or his representative and the French, British and Spanish ambassadors, an Amal official said.

Official sources said that U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Reginald Bartholomew was in contact with Berri.

Berri, who also is Lebanon’s justice minister, said: “The talks focused on an airlift of prisoners from northern Israel to Damascus. I have agreed to mediate after the hijackers have given a guarantee that they will not hurt any of the hostages.”

In Jerusalem, the Israeli Cabinet was reported to be considering the release of hundreds of Shia Muslim prisoners who were captured in southern Lebanon during the Israeli occupation.

Beirut radio reported that Berri’s Amal militia went on full alert Sunday, fearing an Israeli commando attack to free the hostages. Reporters were ordered to leave the airport after flashes were seen from militia anti-aircraft guns on the coast firing at an unidentified ship purportedly accompanied by a helicopter.

Late in the evening, the control tower told the hijackers that “strange targets” were flying in from the south and suggested they refuel the Boeing 727. However, after much frantic maneuvering by the hijackers, including blacking out the airport, nothing happened.

In another complication, White House spokesman Robert Sims confirmed reports that six to 10 Americans with Jewish-sounding surnames were removed from the plane in Beirut on Friday night--the day the hijacking began--and were being held in the Lebanese capital. Late Sunday, David Venz, a spokesman for TWA in New York, said the number of passengers involved was seven.

Before Peel was released, the hijackers said that some of their captives wanted to send a message to Bartholomew “informing him they are not willing to bear the results of Reagan’s actions.”

An Amal official brought from the plane the text of a message written on yellow paper and bearing the purported signatures of 32 American hostages urging the release of the Muslim prisoners in Israel.

“Dear President Reagan, we the undersigned 32 American hostages aboard Flight 847 are writing to you freely, not under duress,” it said. “We implore you not to take any direct military action on our behalf. Please negotiate quickly our immediate release by convincing the Israelis to release the 800 Lebanese prisoners as requested now.”

Peel, the hostage released Sunday, confirmed that the message to Reagan was not written under duress.

Two hours after releasing the petition, one hijacker complained to the airport control tower about failure to send dinner rations to the aircraft.

“The hostages have gone to sleep hungry. Where is the food?” screamed the hijacker. “Who is supposed to take care of the hostages--you or us?”

Two gunshots then rang out over the tarmac, and reporters were cleared out of the control tower at the request of the hijackers.

Speaking on the TWA plane’s radio, one hijacker renewed a threat to blow up the airliner and blamed American aid to Israel and the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon for forcing the hijacking.

“Our blood will testify to this, if there is any delay in releasing our imprisoned brothers from Israel jails,” the hijacker said over the cockpit radio in Arabic.

In a new demand, the hijackers also sought the release from Spanish custody of two Lebanese Shias alleged to have staged an abortive bid to assassinate a Libyan diplomat in Madrid, the Beirut control tower said.

Sunday’s landing was the third time the red-and-white Boeing 727 and its weary crew had been forced to make at the battered Beirut airport since the aircraft was hijacked Friday after leaving Athens for Rome with 145 passengers and eight crew on board.

The jetliner has now flown more than 8,500 miles, shuttling between Beirut and Algiers, Algeria.

The two original hijackers, who boarded the plane in Athens, were joined by more terrorists during stops in Beirut, airline officials said.

Nineteen passengers have been released in Beirut, and other groups of passengers have been freed during two stops in Algiers, where negotiations were conducted with the hijackers.

On Saturday, one passenger was killed by the hijackers and his body tossed onto the tarmac at Beirut airport. In Spain, a U.S. Air Force spokesman said the body of the slain passenger was taken to the U.S. air base at Torrejon for identification.