Lebanon Terrorist Group Says It Hanged Captive Briton, Offers Grim Videotape

A terrorist group said Wednesday that it has hanged a kidnaped Briton in retaliation for the U.S. air raids on Libya and urged other factions holding British or American hostages to do the same.

A videotape accompanying the statement showed a man with a black mask over his eyes, said to be 64-year-old Alec Collett, dangling from a scaffold while a crowd chanted slogans against “American and British arrogance.”

Collett, a British journalist on a U.N. assignment, was abducted March 25, 1985, on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital. The body and the parts of the face visible in the videotape resembled photographs of Collett released by the United Nations after his abduction.

Abu Nidal Link

The Revolutionary Organization of Socialist Muslims, believed to be linked to renegade Palestinian terrorist leader Abu Nidal, provided the four-minute tape to the independent Beirut newspaper An Nahar. The accompanying typewritten statement in Arabic said Collett was “executed” April 16 in retaliation for Britain’s complicity in the U.S. air attack on Libya the day before.

Bodies of two Britons and an American were found last week outside Beirut, and one of them initially was identified as Collett. A statement from their killers said the three were slain in revenge for the raid on Libya, which Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government aided by allowing some of the attacking warplanes to take off from British bases.

A voice heard on the videotape said in Arabic that Collett was hanged at a mass rally, but it did not say where, and the actual hanging was not shown.

More Killings Urged

Denouncing Thatcher and President Reagan, the terrorists’ statement urged all other factions holding American or British hostages to “execute them because the blood of Americans and Britons is now permissible as a result of the criminal acts exercised by murderer Reagan and criminal Thatcher.”

At the United Nations, Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar expressed outrage at the report of Collett’s murder, calling it “a barbaric act of terrorism.”

“It is with outrage and revulsion that I have learned of the videotape received by a Beirut newspaper which allegedly shows the murder of Alec Collett,” U.N. spokesman Francois Giuliani quoted the secretary general as saying.

“Like others, I am anxiously seeking to verify whether Mr. Collett has in fact been killed or whether this is a macabre and ill-intentioned charade,” Perez de Cuellar said.

Collett’s son, David, of Los Angeles, said: “At the moment, this has not been confirmed. This report is similar to the report last week. I really can’t comment.”

Father Lost Finger

The visible features of the hanging victim strikingly resembled those in photographs of Collett, but the man’s hands were tied behind him, and some of the fingers were concealed. Collett’s daughter, Suzie Grant, said in London last week that her father lost a finger many years ago.

The body tentatively identified as Collett’s last week proved to be that of Peter Kilburn, 62, an American who was working as a librarian at the American University of Beirut when he disappeared Dec. 3, 1984. The two Britons--John Leigh Douglas, 34, and Philip Padfield, 40--were teachers who were kidnaped March 28.

Responsibility for their murders was claimed by the Arab Revolutionary Cells, another group believed linked to Abu Nidal, who the Reagan Administration says is supported and harbored by Moammar Kadafi’s regime in Libya.

The Revolutionary Organization of Socialist Muslims made a claim to An Nahar last Thursday that it had killed Collett and promised to provide photographs of his hanging later.

Found in Envelope

An Nahar’s editors said the videotape and statement were found Wednesday in an envelope left at the ground-floor reception desk of the newspaper’s nine-story building by an unknown man.

The tape first showed an empty noose swaying over green grass and scattered rocks. A man’s voice read the text of the organization’s statement.

When the recital ended, the lifeless body appeared on the screen dangling from a noose, and an unseen crowd could be heard chanting, “Allahu akbar!” (God is great).

The body was clad in loose blue denims, a red-and-white-checked shirt and a khaki jacket.

“Down with American and British arrogance!” the voice that read the statement shouted. “Long live our Arab and Islamic nation!” The crowd repeated the same slogan twice after him.

Leaders Denounced

Other chants denounced the U.S. and British leaders: “Down with criminal Reagan, down with criminal Thatcher and long live the masses of Arab and Muslim Libya!”

The written statement accompanying the videotape said:

“In retaliation for the monstrous joint American-British raid, and for the scandalous role of the British government in participating in the murder of innocent sons of our Arab and Islamic nation, our organization announces the execution of the death sentence of British spy Alec Collett in a mass rally.”

It said Collett’s killing was a “punishment for criminal Thatcher and her Foreign Secretary (Geoffrey) Howe and her backward reactionary regime that transformed her country into an American protectorate.”

Collett was on a writing assignment for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees. In addition to Douglas and Padfield, his death would bring to four the number of British hostages slain in Lebanon.

The first was Denis Hill, an English language teacher at the American University, who was found shot to death May 29, 1985, two days after he disappeared in West Beirut.

Shot at Close Range

Kilburn is the only American confirmed killed. His body was found with those of Douglas and Padfield alongside a mountain highway last Thursday. All had been shot at close range.

Islamic Jihad (Islamic Holy War), a shadowy terrorist group believed to be made up of Shia Muslim zealots loyal to Iran, has claimed to hold four other Americans kidnaped in the last two years.

They are Terry A. Anderson, chief Mideast correspondent of the Associated Press; Father Lawrence Jenco, the Beirut chief of Catholic Relief Services; David P. Jacobsen, director of the American University Hospital, and Thomas Sutherland, dean of the university’s school of agriculture.

In addition, Islamic Jihad reported Oct. 4 that it had killed hostage William Buckley, political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, but no body has been found.

Americans in Lebanon have become increasingly aware of the hazards of life here, and 10 members of the dwindling American community, most of them teachers, were evacuated from Muslim West Beirut on Tuesday.