The World - News from May 25, 1987

Syria’s military intelligence chief in Lebanon, Gen. Ghazi Kenaan, denied saying that Muslim kidnapers sold a French hostage to Libya. Radio stations in Beirut quoted Kenaan as saying he never mentioned Libya during an interview with a correspondent for the Paris magazine Le Figaro. “Naming Libya by the magazine is an attempt to disturb relations between Syria and that sister country,” Kenaan was quoted as saying. Le Figaro quoted the general as saying that “one or more French hostages were sold to the Libyans. They served as a means of pressure against the French government in the conflict pitting the troops of (Chadian) President Hissen Habre against the Libyan army.”