Berri Frees Ill Hostage, Offers to Move Others : Suggests Western Embassy or Syria for 3rd Party Role

Lebanese Shia Muslim leader Nabih Berri released an ailing American hostage Wednesday and offered to transfer the remaining 39 captives to a Western embassy here or to Syria as part of a prisoner exchange with Israel.

Berri said he has offered the United States several options for removing the hostages from their kidnapers’ control as a compromise to settle the crisis, which began 13 days ago when fundamentalist Shia gunmen hijacked a TWA airliner while on a flight from Athens to Rome.

Berri--who is Lebanon’s minister of justice, as well as the leader of Amal, the country’s largest Shia militia--cautioned the Reagan Administration against pressuring the hijackers with actions such as a blockade of Beirut, a move the White House has threatened to take if diplomacy does not win the hostages’ release.

“Until now, the problem has been between the kidnapers and the government of the United States, and I am the mediator,” Berri said. “But when it comes to threatening us, we cannot accept aggression. We will defend ourselves.”

Appearing ebullient despite the strains of the last week’s hectic round of negotiations, Berri held a tumultuous news conference in the cramped basement of his home and was joined by one of the hostages, Jimmy Dell Palmer, 48, of Little Rock, Ark.

Palmer, who is suffering from a heart ailment, was released on humanitarian grounds, Berri said. After the news conference, Palmer was driven to the airport, where the hijacked TWA airliner is still parked with gunmen aboard, and boarded a plane to Cyprus. He flew to London later Wednesday and is expected to arrive home in Little Rock tonight.

Berri said he will also review the medical condition of another hostage, Simon Grossmayer, 57, of Algonquin, Ill., who had a cancerous lung removed recently. He said he would make a decision on his release in the next 24 hours.

Co-Pilot Examined

In another medical note, airport control tower officials said that one of the three crew members of the hijacked airliner, co-pilot Philip Maresca, was taken to American University Hospital for examination of a week-old insect bite that became infected and inflamed his shoulder and elbow. Upon returning to the plane after tests, Maresca reported to the tower by radio, “I’m OK now.”

Some scare reports were issued early in the incident when, apparently trying to speed the arrival of a requested doctor, one of the hijackers on the plane radioed: “I have a dying man on the plane. I want the doctor.”

In his press conference, Berri suggested a series of complex maneuvers with the remaining hostages that would meet concerns for their safety while satisfying the hijackers’ demands, which he has supported.

After taking over TWA Flight 847, the hijackers demanded the release of more than 700 Lebanese prisoners being held in Israel’s Atlit prison near Haifa. They were detained during the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and then were moved over the border into Israel.

Both the Reagan Administration and the Israeli government have said they will not give in to the hijackers. Israel, which had previously scheduled and then postponed freeing many of the prisoners, released 31 of them Monday but said this was not connected to the hostage crisis.

(The Jerusalem Post reported in this morning’s edition that Israel was “poised” to release the bulk of its detainees from Atlit if the American hostages are handed over to the French Embassy in Beirut. It said the so-called inner cabinet--consisting of the 10 senior members of the coalition government--met for three hours Wednesday night to discuss what was termed a “breakthrough” represented by Berri’s offer to transfer the hostages to the French Embassy.

(The Post said officials would not disclose what was discussed at the inner cabinet meeting, but it was understood that the timing of the release of the Atlit detainees was under consideration. Both Israel radio and the respected Hebrew-language daily newspaper Haaretz, without reporting details, also said this morning that the inner cabinet met on the hostage issue.)

Berri, who has been under increasing international pressure to end the hijacking, offered to turn over the Americans to a Western embassy in predominantly Muslim West Beirut, suggesting the embassies of France or Switzerland as possible sanctuaries.

He said the transfer would carry a condition: that the embassy pledge not to release the hostages until the prisoners in the Israeli prison were also released.

He said that if the United States finds this plan unacceptable, he is prepared to put the hostages aboard an airliner and send them to Damascus, provided that Syrian President Hafez Assad gives similar assurances about their release.

Berri said he has not discussed the plan with anyone before his announcement, but he did say the hijackers have approved the proposal.

As a condition for the transfer, Berri said he is demanding that American warships now off the Lebanese coast be withdrawn into international waters at least 12 miles out. The United States has said the ships are already in international waters. White House spokesman Larry Speakes said Wednesday the ships are 20 miles offshore.

Berri said that he also wants a pledge from the Reagan Administration that neither the United States nor Israel will attack Lebanon in retaliation after the hostages are released.

Berri said he will not accept an American guarantee that Israel would eventually release the Lebanese prisoners if the hostages were released first. The suggestion, which has been made as a possible compromise, is unacceptable, he said, because the Reagan Administration has failed to honor earlier written pledges concerning Israel’s treatment of civilians.

Syria has not yet indicated a willingness to take part in a hostage swap, although Berri noted that there had been intensive contacts between President Reagan and Syria’s Assad.

(In Paris, the French government announced shortly after Berri’s press conference that it would consider taking custody of the hostages. A French government spokesman said that while his government condemns the hijacking, “France is always available when it is a question of protecting human lives and avoiding suffering.”)

After the hijacked airplane arrived in Lebanon for the third time last week, the hostages were removed from the aircraft and are now being held in various parts of Beirut.

Berri said he has freedom to dictate the hostages’ living conditions and can free a captive for humanitarian reasons such as illness. However, the actual decision to release them must be made by the hijackers, he said.

Berri said he had decided to permit the 40 hostages to meet Tuesday night in Beirut with officials and a doctor from the International Committee of the Red Cross as a humanitarian response to the warnings from the Reagan Administration. Berri emphasized that all of the hostages were present at the meeting in an undisclosed “central location” in Beirut. He said this countered reports from Washington that a group of the hostages had been removed to a remote location such as Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley.

Freed hostage Palmer told the Beirut news conference that all 40 of the Americans had been present to talk with the Red Cross officials and send messages to their families.

Wearing a red short-sleeved shirt and tan trousers, Palmer told the news conference, “I’m a typical American citizen who knows very little about the problems in Beirut.”

Asked if he has developed any sympathy for the hijackers, he replied that he was sympathetic to Berri’s men but not to the original hijackers of the aircraft. The hijackers killed one American during the first few days of the hijacking.

Berri also disclosed at the news conference that he was told on Tuesday by unidentified callers that two Frenchmen abducted on May 22 will also be released when the American hostages are freed.

The two, journalist Jean-Paul Kaufmann and scientist Michel Seurat, were kidnaped on their way from Beirut airport into the city. The Muslim terrorist group known as Islamic Jihad later claimed responsibility for their abduction.

Berri said that he asked the caller for the release of 11 missing foreigners in Beirut, including seven Americans previously kidnaped, but was told that the group holding the two Frenchmen was not holding anyone else.

Saying that he was beginning “to sound like a lawyer for the hijackers,” Berri repeatedly asked that the American government consider the root causes of the hijacking by demanding that Israel return the captured Lebanese.

The Reagan Administration announced before the hijacking took place that it considers Israel’s removal of the prisoners from Lebanon a violation of Geneva Conventions on the treatment of civilian prisoners by occupying powers.

Berri also indicated that he is not entirely comfortable with his sudden fame as the mediator in the hostage crisis.

“For these hostages, I accepted to be the mediator,” he said. “Do you think I don’t know what they say in America and Europe, that Mr. Berri is the terrorist? I accept all that to save the hostages.”

Despite the palpable tension, Berri twice made light of his predicament.

At one point, he said that if Syria is unacceptable to the Reagan Administration, he is willing to turn over the hostages to the Iranians for safekeeping. Iran held American diplomats hostage for 444 days starting in 1979.

And referring to his image in the American media, Berri abruptly halted an answer to say that reports that he owns 16 gasoline stations in the United States are inaccurate. “I accept one,” he said with a smile.