3 Libyans Released in Swap for 4 Italians

In a secret overnight swap, Italy freed three Libyan prisoners in exchange for four Italians, including two accused of involvement in a coup attempt against Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, officials said Tuesday.

One of the Libyans was convicted of killing a fellow Libyan in Italy, and two were convicted of attempting to kill a Libyan businessman.

The exchange was announced by the Foreign Ministry after the Italians arrived home on an International Red Cross plane. The deal climaxed negotiations that apparently started at least two years ago.

The Italian news agency AGI quoted an unidentified spokesman for the Libyan diplomatic mission in Rome as saying the swap was evidence of a “new climate” in Italian-Libyan relations.

The Foreign Ministry said two of the Italians, Enzo Castelli and Edoardo Seliciato, were in poor health and that their families had appealed to Libya for some time for their release.

Castelli, 37, and Seliciato, 41, were arrested in August, 1980, on charges of plotting against Libya. Kadafi’s government accused them of aiding dissident Libyan army officers and Egyptian agents in fomenting an army revolt near Tobruk.

Reports at the time said that as many as 400 people were killed or injured in fighting following the failed mutiny.

The other freed Italians, Mauro Piccin and Massimo Caporali, were serving 10-year sentences on charges of possession of drugs.

The Foreign Ministry said a Red Cross plane flew the four to Rome, where relatives met them at Ciampino Airport.

The Libyans left Italy late Monday after being pardoned, the ministry said, but details of their departure were not disclosed.

Airport sources said a Libyan airliner made an unscheduled landing at Ciampino late Monday and departed for Tripoli just after midnight. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they did not know if the Libyans were aboard.

They were Jussef Uhida, sentenced to 26 years’ imprisonment in the 1980 slaying of a Libyan believed to be a dissident, and Sidki Sajed Dous and Juma Ali Mezdawi, both sentenced to 14 years and 11 months in prison.

Dous and Mezdawi fired at a Libyan businessman getting off a Kuwaiti plane in Rome in 1981, mistaking him for a Libyan opposition leader, according to testimony at their trial. The businessman survived the attack.

At the time, Libya’s revolutionary committees were tracking down dissidents abroad. However, the two testified that they acted on their own.

Italian newspapers reported in 1984 that a prisoner exchange was under consideration by Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti.

In recent years, Italy has refused to release Arab terrorists convicted of crimes here despite threats by terrorist groups to attack Italian targets.

Andreotti said in a speech last month that Western Europe has been “excessively indulgent” with terrorists and said, “We must stop treating them as naughty children by meeting their demands and thinking about punishment afterward.”

Italy came under fire in the United States last year when it released Abul Abbas, accused by Washington of planning the October, 1985, hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise liner, during which an elderly American passenger was murdered.