U.S. Discounts Story of Hostage Move to Iran

A Beirut magazine reported Saturday that some of the eight American hostages in Lebanon have been moved to Iran and could be put on trial, but Reagan Administration officials said they do not believe the report.

The weekly magazine Al Shiraa, which last year revealed the Reagan Administration’s secret arms deals with Iran, said one faction in the Tehran government wants to put the hostages on trial while a second faction favors a new arms-for-hostages deal.

U.S. officials said they doubt the report, but the State Department issued a warning to the Tehran government in case the hostages have been moved to Iran.

“We have no information which would substantiate these reports,” State Department spokesman Pete Martinez said. “However, if such reports were indeed true, we would consider it a matter of the utmost gravity and would hold the Iranian government directly responsible for the safety and well-being of the hostages.

‘Outrageous’ Notion

“In any case, the very notion of a trial for the hostages is outrageous. The hostages are not criminals but innocent victims. The terrorist kidnapers are those who should be facing trial. We repeat our call that any group or country having influence on the kidnapers has a responsibility to secure the immediate and unconditional release of all the hostages.”

Another official, who asked not to be identified, said that the Administration has found no evidence to support Al Shiraa’s report and dismissed it as “disinformation.”

“I don’t believe it for one second,” he said.

The Lebanese magazine said that its information came from unnamed sources close to the Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, the designated successor to the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as supreme leader of Iran’s Islamic revolution.

It said the hostages were “being subjected to thorough interrogations by the Iranian intelligence service under the direct supervision of Minister of Security and Intelligence Mohammed Mohammedi-Reyshahri.”

Al Shiraa reported that a government committee formed by Khomeini had concluded that “a settlement to the hostage issue could be achieved . . . if the United States delivered to Iran weapons that had been purchased and paid for by the late Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi,” the ruler who was toppled by Khomeini in 1979.

Most Radical Faction

But it said that Montazeri, who is supported by the most radical anti-American faction in the government, had rejected that finding.

“Montazeri demands that the American hostages . . . be brought to trial, especially since some of them have already been taken to Iran,” Al Shiraa said.

The senior U.S. official agreed that some figures in Tehran still want to explore the possibility of a deal for the hostages. He said that the report in Al Shiraa could have been floated by those Iranians in an attempt to pressure the Administration toward new negotiations over the captives.

Iran helped gain the release of three hostages in exchange for secret U.S. arms sales during 1985 and 1986, and the Speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Hashemi Rafsanjani, has said publicly that such a deal could be renewed.

‘Nervous as We Are’

“They may also be using this to warn the United States to be careful in the Persian Gulf,” he said. “They’re as nervous as we are.”

The United States has announced that it will protect shipping in the gulf from attacks by Iran, and has specifically warned Iran against using its new Chinese-made Silkworm anti-ship missiles. Iranian officials, in turn, have warned the United States against attacking the Silkworm sites on Iran’s southern coast.

In Biloxi, Miss., a former hostage, the Rev. Benjamin Weir, said the reported transfer of some Americans is “extremely distressing,” according to the Associated Press.

“One of the ominous things that we could think of is that they might in some way be charged with having been involved in political activities, which I’m quite sure is not true for any of them,” said Weir, in Biloxi to attend the annual meeting of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

“It is extremely distressing if this is true, if it is a serious intention to subject them to interrogation and trial,” Weir said.

But, he added, “It’s very hard to know what the truth of the matter is.”

New Report on Waite

Meanwhile, a newspaper in the gulf sheikdom of Abu Dhabi reported that kidnaped Anglican Church mediator Terry Waite has been taken to Iran twice for talks with officials there. The newspaper, Al Ittihad, did not say whether Waite was still in Iran, the Associated Press reported.

In London, an Anglican Church spokesman said he could not confirm the report.

Waite, a Briton, dropped out of sight Jan. 20 after leaving a hotel in West Beirut, reportedly to negotiate with a pro-Iranian group holding two American hostages. That trip came shortly after Waite acknowledged meeting with Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, the key White House figure in the secret U.S.-Iranian deals.

No group has claimed responsibility for Waite’s disappearance.

A total of 25 foreigners are missing and believed kidnaped in Lebanon. They include eight Americans: Terry A. Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent for the AP; Thomas Sutherland and Joseph James Cicippio of the American University of Beirut; Jesse J. Turner, Alann Steen, and Robert Polhill of Beirut University College; Frank Herbert Reed, director of the Lebanese International School; and Edward Austin Tracy, a writer.