Shia Extremists Claim 2 Kidnapings in Beirut

A Shia Muslim extremist group claimed responsibility today for kidnaping an American accountant and for the previously unreported abduction of a Frenchman, and said it will try both for spying.

The statement from the Revolutionary Justice Organization, published by the independent Beirut newspaper An Nahar, identified the victims as Joseph James Cicippio, 56, of Norristown, Pa., and Marcel Coudry, a Frenchman.

An Nahar also published two photographs that the group said showed Cicippio and Coudry in captivity. The newspaper said it received the pictures today in the same envelope that contained the statement from the Revolutionary Justice Organization.

Cicippio was kidnaped by four gunmen on the campus of the American University of Beirut, where he worked as acting controller, on Sept. 12.

This was the second claim of responsibility for his abduction. The first was made Sept. 14 by a pro-Libyan group calling itself the Arab Revolutionary Cells-Omar Moukhtar Forces, which also claimed that it had kidnaped American educator Frank Herbert Reed.

The photo of Cicippio showed a man wearing glasses, a short, scruffy beard, and a blue shirt.

Cicippio’s Lebanese wife, Ilham Ghandour, confirmed that it was a picture of her husband.

“He is much thinner and has a beard and a mustache which he did not have before. But it’s him,” Ilham Ghandour told the Associated Press.

The Revolutionary Justice Organization, which is believed made up of pro-Iranian Shia zealots, said it had kidnaped Coudry in Christian East Beirut. It did not say when, or give any further details.

The French Embassy said it found nothing in its records about a Frenchman named Coudry in Beirut. But the Foreign Ministry in Paris said a French citizen named Marcel Khodari, a resident of Beirut, has been missing since February.

The Revolutionary Justice Organization staged its first kidnaping March 8, when it abducted a four-man crew from France’s Antenne-2 television network in Muslim East Beirut.

On June 20, the group freed two French hostages, Antenne-2 correspondent Philippe Rochot, 39, and cameraman Georges Hansen, 45. The other two are still missing.