2 French TV Newsmen Freed Unhurt in Beirut : Shia Kidnapers Cite Shifts in Mideast Policy by Paris; No Word on Other Western Hostages

Shia Muslim kidnapers late Friday freed two members of a French television crew on a darkened waterfront street in the Lebanese capital after three months in captivity.

“We were left free near the Hotel Beau Rivage and then walked to the hotel,” correspondent Philippe Rochot said as he sat beside cameraman Georges Hansen, 45, in the hotel lobby. They were surrounded by Shia militiamen and Syrian secret service agents as they spoke.

The Revolutionary Justice Organization said that it freed the two television journalists because of changes in France’s Middle East policy and also because of mediation by Syria, Algeria and Lebanon’s pro-Iranian Hezbollah, or Party of God.

Rochot, 39-year-old Middle East correspondent of the French network Antenne-2, said they were treated well during their three months of captivity.

“We read some . . . French literature. We ate about three times a day. We got three cigarettes a day. We could shave, we could wash. There was a shower,” he said.

Happy to Be Free

When told that he had lost weight, he laughed and said he was happy to be free and looking forward to returning to Paris.

In its statement released to local media early Friday, the Revolutionary Justice Organization, a little known underground group, said that the release would take place in 24 hours. “We announce the release of two of the French hostages in the hope that France will take this opportunity to further correct its policies so that the rest of its hostages will also be released,” the kidnapers’ statement continued.

March 8 Abduction

Four members of the French television crew were abducted March 8 when returning from a rally of the Shia Muslim fundamentalist Hezbollah movement in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The still-missing TV crewmen are sound man Aurel Cornea, 54, and lighting engineer Jean-Louis Normandin, 34.

Asked about Cornea and Normandin, Rochot said, “I don’t know when they will be released. They just picked the two of us and said you are going to be freed.”

He said that Cornea and Normandin “are in good condition. They have been treated like us.”

All of the four crew members were kept together in one room, Rochot said.

Three Hours’ Notice

He said that he and Hansen were told they would be released only three hours before they were actually set free in the Ramlet al Baida residential district.

The Frenchmen did not know where they were held captive, Rochot said, but he added, “We were not blindfolded. We were staying on a bed in a room.”

Rochot was clean shaven while Hansen had a thick beard. Both wore clean shirts and trousers.

Their release came at the end of a day of false starts and rumors that led at one time to a wild chase through the streets of Muslim West Beirut between French Embassy cars, a car of gunmen and journalists tailing behind.

The release initially was set for 7 p.m. by the kidnapers, according to telephone calls to Beirut newspapers, but it was nearly midnight when Rochot and Hansen were freed and arrived at the Beau Rivage Hotel.

Earlier Friday, police and witnesses had reported seeing two French hostages set free, but French Embassy officials denied those reports, and the two could not be found.

‘All a Movie’

The witnesses said they saw two men whom they thought were French hostages climb out of a car filled with gunmen and get into a French Embassy car in West Beirut.

But an embassy official said, “Believe me, it was all a movie. No one was freed. The convoy returned empty handed.”

Besides the two television journalists still held hostage, four other missing Frenchmen are believed to be held by another Muslim group, calling itself Islamic Holy War. The latter organization also claims that it kidnaped five Americans who were abducted here and are still missing.

There had been growing speculation in France and the Middle East about a breakthrough in the French hostage crisis, especially after Massoud Rajavi, leader of the Moujahedeen, Iran’s main anti-government guerrilla organization, was recently pressured by the Paris government to leave the country. Rajavi set up headquarters in Iraq, which has been at war with the government of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for nearly six years.

The Lebanese independent An Nahar newspaper and the leftist As Safir newspaper each said that anonymous callers Friday reported that two of the four French TV crewmen were being released “in view of the evidence and the new commitments by the French government about the change in its Middle East policies and the humanitarian mediation of our friends and comrades, . . . Hezbollah and that of Syrian President Hafez Assad and Algerian friends.”