Shiite Group Claims It Killed Israeli ‘Spy’

Shiite Muslim fundamentalist kidnapers claimed Saturday that they killed a Jewish hostage in retaliation for Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon.

The group also sent photographs said to be of the victim and two other captives, all of whom the kidnapers accused of being Israeli spies.

The Organization of the Oppressed on the Earth said in a statement sent to a Western news agency in Beirut that its members had killed Ibrahim Benesti “in our own way, in the hope that other agents will take this as an example.”

The organization said Benesti was killed because of Israel’s continued occupation of southern Lebanon, “the violation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem” and continued shelling of southern Lebanese villages.

The group said it had smashed an Israeli spy network in Lebanon.

No Information on Bodies

Police said early Sunday that they had received no information about any bodies being found in west Beirut--the location of two previous “executions” by the shadowy Organization of the Oppressed on the Earth.

The statement named its remaining two Jewish hostages as Yehuda Benesti and Youssef Benesti, but the Higher Council of Lebanese Jews said three other Jews, including a man named Youssef Tinesti, are still missing.

It was not immediately clear whether Tinesti was the kidnapers’ Benesti or whether the three captives are relatives.

The statement says the Benestis are “the main pillars . . . of a dangerous espionage organization working for Israel in Lebanon.”

“We call upon our leaders to counter the dangers and liquidate those cooperating with Israel because some of them have attained high security posts or else we shall punish them in our own way,” the statement says.

The group also condemned the detention of an estimated 300 Shiite Muslims in the southern Lebanese village of Khiam by the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army militia, which has refused to free its prisoners.

The Polaroid photographs that accompanied the statement show an elderly bearded man and two middle-aged men with beards and scars on their faces and foreheads.

The same group said it “executed” Chaim Cohen Halallah, 39, and Issac Tarab, 69, on New Year’s Eve. Their bodies were found in west Beirut and were identified by relatives who had fled to Christian east Beirut.