Terrorists Free American held i lebanon 16 Months : Rev. Weir Back in U.S., Condition called Good

The Rev. Benjamin Weir, one of seven Americans kidnaped by Muslim terrorists over the last 18 months, was secretly released over the weekend, President Reagan said today, and has been reunited with his family on American soil.

The White House said Weir is in “good mental and physical condition.”

“I am pleased to inform you that Rev. Benjamin Weir, held for 16 months in Lebanon, has been released,” Reagan told a cheering crowd in Concord, N.H., where he was campaigning for tax reform.

“I talked with Rev. Weir (from) Air Force One this morning and I’m happy for him and his family.”

“But I will not be satisfied and will not cease our efforts until all the hostages--the other six--are released,” said Reagan, whose Administration has been criticized by some members of the kidnap victims’ families for failing to win release of the “Forgotten Seven.”

In Good Condition

White House spokesman Edward Djerejian said Weir was released by his captors in Beirut on Saturday and secretly returned to the United States. Physicians attending Weir in Norfolk, Va., found him in “very good mental and physical condition,” he said.

Weir is in Norfolk with his family, Djerejian said. The freed clergyman is under the care of doctors but is not hospitalized, the spokesman said.

Djerejian said he would not discuss “the negotiations leading to the release” but stressed that “no deal” had been made and “no concessions” given to Weir’s captors.

The spokesman said the Administration kept Weir’s release secret for four days because of hopes of an “imminent release” of the six other Americans being held. Tuesday night, however, officials decided there was no connection between the release of Weir and the other Americans.

Concern About Others

He declined to give any details on how or why Weir was released because he said it might endanger the safety of the others.

Peggy Say, sister of one of the six Americans still being held in Lebanon, Associated Press Beirut bureau chief Terry Anderson, said she had spoken by telephone with Weir’s son, John, on his father’s release.

“I talked to John and he said his father is very well and they have been in the Norfolk, Va., area all weekend,” Say said from her home in Batavia, N.Y.

The Weir family is feeling “just wonderful,” she said.

Weir, 61, last seen in a photograph distributed by the terrorist organization Islamic Jihad May 15, is a Presbyterian minister and native of Berkeley, Calif. He was seized by Muslim gunmen near his home in mostly Muslim West Beirut May 8, 1984.

News Conference Planned

Presbyterian Church officials said the Weir family will hold a news conference in Washington at 7 a.m. PDT Thursday. Reagan said Vice President George Bush will meet Friday with some of the relatives of other Americans missing in Beirut.

Say said she did not know precisely when or why Weir was released. Nor was there any word on the fate of the six other Americans, four Frenchmen, a Briton and an Italian kidnaped from the streets of West Beirut between March of 1984 and this month.

On Capitol Hill, Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) said Weir’s release is “the best reason we have had yet for hope. If one of the ‘Forgotten Seven’ can be released, than all of them can be released.”

Rep. Norman Y. Mineta (D-San Jose) said, “We must not forget that six Americans remain in captivity.”

Anonymous Call

Word that Weir had been released circulated over the weekend. On Sunday, an anonymous caller telephoned two Western news agencies and claimed that Islamic Jihad had released Weir, who had lived in Beirut for more than 30 years.

Shia Muslim extremists in Lebanon, believed to have ties to Iran, have been demanding the release of 17 Lebanese and Iraqis convicted in a string of bombings against United States, French and Kuwaiti targets in Kuwait in December, 1983, in exchange for kidnaped Westerners.

All the kidnaped Americans were believed to have been held in the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon in or near the extremist Shia stronghold of Baalbek, which is under Syrian control.