Beirut Kidnapers Turn 2nd Saudi Hostage Over to Syrians; 24 Foreigners Still Held

Kidnapers Friday handed over another Saudi Arabian captive, the second released this week, to Syrian forces in Muslim West Beirut.

“They kept me blindfolded all the time, but not handcuffed,” said Khaled Deeb, 23, who was freed after 54 days as a hostage. “I was not beaten.”

Bakr Damanhouri, a Saudi employee of his embassy’s cultural section, was freed Wednesday after 66 days in captivity.

“I am very happy to be free,” Deeb told a news conference. He was later driven to Damascus, the Syrian capital 60 miles to the southeast, where he boarded a private plane for the flight home.

24 Still Missing

His release left 24 foreigners, including eight Americans, believed held hostage in Lebanon, mostly by radical Shia Muslim organizations.

Deeb told reporters in Damascus that his kidnapers dropped him off blindfolded near a Syrian military office in West Beirut. He said he had expected to be released because his captors “had begun panicking in the past two days. I think they felt they had been located (by the Syrians) and maybe security patrols were increasing in the area.”

Abdallah Amin, an official of the Syrian-backed Baath Party, said Nabil Jiser, a representative of Lebanese-born Saudi business tycoon Rafik Hariri, was at the military office to receive Deeb. Hariri is an adviser on Lebanese matters to Saudi King Fahd.

“We thank the Syrian Arab command, which at direct instructions from (Syrian) President Hafez Assad, exerted efforts that resulted in the release of Saudi citizen Khaled Deeb,” Amin said.

Amin said Justice Minister Nabih Berri’s mainstream Shia Amal militia also played a role in Deeb’s release.

Seized by ‘Many Gunmen’

Deeb said he was seized in the predominantly Shia slums of south Beirut by “many gunmen.” He said he did not know their identity or where he was held.

Berri and the Syrians on Wednesday refused to identify Damanhouri’s kidnapers, saying that to do so would hamper efforts to gain the release of other hostages.

Deeb said his captors “told me my abduction is politically motivated and linked to the Islamic summit conference” which was held in Kuwait last January.

Iran boycotted the pan-Islamic summit, charging that Kuwait was biased in favor of Iraq in the 6 1/2-year-old Iran-Iraq war.

Deeb said he had been on his way to visit his Lebanese Shia mother when he was abducted. The mother, Mahassen Hussein Deeb, attended the news conference.

Mother Tearful

“I am glad to have my son back,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears.

Also present at the news conference was Col. Abdul-Salam Daghistani, head of a team of Syrian military observers, and Amal militia chief Aql Hamiyeh.

Damanhouri had appeared Wednesday at a news conference held by Berri and attended by Brig. Gen. Ghazi Kenaan, chief of Syria’s military intelligence in Lebanon.

Damanhouri was the first foreign hostage to be freed since 7,500 Syrian soldiers and 100 tanks deployed in west Beirut on Feb. 22 to quell a week of militia fighting that killed 300 people and wounded 1,300.

Huge Valentine

Earlier Friday, the wife of American hostage Jesse Turner displayed a belated Valentine’s Day message from her husband’s hometown, Boise, Ida., at a news conference on the Beirut University College campus.

With the help of scores of students, she unfurled a “roll of love”--a scroll 50 yards long and half a yard wide inscribed with message of support from relatives, friends and other well-wishers in Idaho.

Red-painted hearts and flowers, some the work of children, were mingled with thousands of signatures and messages.

“I hope my husband will be released soon to see it, to read it, and to feel how much his parents, friends and the people of Idaho love him,” said Badr Turner, who is Lebanese.

4 Professors Kidnaped

Turner, 39, a visiting professor of mathematics at Beirut University College, was kidnaped with three other professors on the campus Jan. 24.

The other professors kidnaped with Turner are Alann Steen, 47, a native of Boston who had taught at Humboldt and Chico state universities in California; Robert Polhill, 53, of New York City; and Mithileshwar Singh, 60, a native of India and legal resident alien of the United States. Their wives were also present at the news conference.

Others missing in Lebanon include Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite, who disappeared Jan. 20 after leaving his West Beirut hotel to negotiate with the hostage-holders.