Three Soviet Aides Freed in Beirut : Condition Good, Embassy Says; No News of Americans

Three of the four Soviet Embassy staff members kidnaped by gunmen last month were freed Wednesday night in Muslim West Beirut, Soviet and leftist militia officials said.

The fourth Soviet hostage was found shot to death in south Beirut two days after the group’s abduction by members of the Islamic Liberation Organization, a group believed to be made up of Sunni Muslim fundamentalists.

A Soviet Embassy spokesman who declined to be identified said the hostages are “all free and in relatively good condition.”

A statement delivered to Western news agencies here, allegedly from the kidnapers, said the three men--press attache Oleg Spirin, commercial attache Valery Mirikov and embassy physician Nikolai Sversky--were released “to prove our good intentions.”

Killing Not Mentioned

The kidnapers’ statement made no mention of the slain diplomat, 32-year-old consular secretary Arkady Katkov.

The statement reiterated earlier claims that the Soviets were seized to force the Kremlin to pressure Syria, its main Mideast ally, to call off an offensive by leftist militias, allied with Damascus against Sunni Muslim fundamentalists in Lebanon’s northern port city of Tripoli.

After acknowledging that a cease-fire did go into effect in Tripoli days after Katkov’s killing, the statement went on to say: “We are waiting for all concerned to honor their commitments. In order to prove our good intentions, we have freed the Soviet spies so that others will honor their commitments in Tripoli.”

At least 14 other foreigners, including six Americans, are still missing after being kidnaped in Lebanon. Most of those kidnapings are believed to be the work of Shia Muslim groups not linked to the gunmen who captured the Soviets.

House-to-House Searches

The release of the three Soviets followed house-to-house searches by leftist, Syrian-backed militias in mostly Muslim West Beirut and in the predominantly Sunni port city of Sidon, 25 miles south of Beirut.

The freed hostages were accompanied to the embassy by militiamen of the Progressive Socialist Party, a Druze group, which guarded the mission after the Soviets were kidnaped.

“They arrived in two cars, looking very tired and drawn,” said an embassy guard.

One embassy official, who declined to be identified, said, “I have no idea where they were kept or how they came to be free.”

Asked if journalists would be allowed to see the freed men, the embassy official said, “That is for the doctors to decide.”

A cafe proprietor near the Soviet mission said Soviet diplomats bought bottles of whiskey and vodka, apparently to celebrate, and “they looked pretty happy.”

News of the release, when broadcast by West Beirut radio stations, triggered an outburst of gunfire and exploding rocket-propelled grenades fired in the streets by leftist militiamen to celebrate the end of the Soviets’ monthlong ordeal.

The kidnapings, the first of Soviet citizens in militia-ruled West Beirut, were a major embarrassment to Muslim militia leaders and Syria at a time when they were involved in talks with Lebanese Christians aimed at ending Lebanon’s 10-year-old civil strife.

Gunmen in West Beirut dragged the four Soviets from their official cars at gunpoint on Sept. 30. Two days later, Katkov’s body was found near a sports stadium in southern Beirut. He had been shot in the head at close range. A telephone caller claiming to represent the Islamic Liberation Organization said the other hostages would be executed unless the Tripoli campaign came to an end.

Two days after Katkov’s body was found, the Soviet Union evacuated 135 of its diplomats and dependents from Beirut, after receiving another threat from the Islamic Liberation Organization that the embassy would be blown up unless a cease-fire went into effect in Tripoli. The deadline passed, however, without incident.

Skeleton Staffing

Since that episode, the Soviet Embassy has been manned by a skeleton staff, believed to be fewer than 20 diplomats and commercial representatives.

In Washington, Sondra McCarty, a State Department press officer, said: “. . . We welcome the release of the Soviets.

“We also call upon those holding the American and other foreign hostages in Lebanon to release them forthwith. We’ve said on a number of occasions that violence such as kidnaping is outside the bounds of civilized behavior.”

McCarty said U.S. officials “are working on the presumption that they (the six kidnaped Americans) are all alive.”

Islamic Jihad (Islamic Holy War), a Shia Muslim group seeking the release of 17 comrades jailed in Kuwait for bombings, claimed Oct. 4 that it had killed U.S. diplomat William Buckley, one of the six kidnaped Americans.

Blurred Photographs

It later produced blurred photographs of what it claimed was Buckley’s shroud-wrapped body. But U.S. officials said the photos are not “conclusive proof” that Buckley, 57, is dead.

The other Americans held hostage are: Father Lawrence Jenco, 50, Beirut chief of Catholic Relief Services; Peter Kilburn, 60, a librarian at the American University of Beirut; Terry A. Anderson, 37, chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press; David P. Jacobsen, 54, director of American University Hospital, and Thomas Sutherland, dean of the school of agriculture at American University.

The manhunt for the Soviets eclipsed the efforts to free American and French hostages believed held by Islamic Jihad.

But the seizure of the Soviets ended the virtual immunity from kidnaping that East Bloc nationals have enjoyed since Muslim extremists began abducting foreigners in January, 1984.

More than 30 foreigners have been kidnaped since January, 1984. Twenty have been freed. But four, including Katkov, have been killed.

“The superpowers are now in the same boat,” noted one of Lebanon’s most respected political columnists, Michel abu Jaudeh. “The kidnapings have created a balance of terror between Washington and Moscow.”