2 Scandinavian U.N. Relief Workers Freed in Lebanon

Muslim kidnapers freed two Scandinavian U.N. relief workers Tuesday, nearly a month after they were seized in southern Lebanon, and left a note saying the hostages were “proved innocent.”

Also on Tuesday, a statement purporting to be from the kidnapers of Lt. Col. William R. Higgins said the U.S. Marine will be put “on trial” for espionage when his captors finish questioning him. There was no way of authenticating the statement.

Jan Stening, 44, of Sweden and William Jorgensen, 57, of Norway, both employees of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, were released in Sidon, 25 miles south of Beirut. They were kidnaped Feb. 5 in the same city.

Norwegian Charge d’Affaires Peter Raeder said in an interview: “I saw them. They looked a little bit pale but in fairly good condition.”

Freed in Sidon

Reporters in Sidon said the U.N. workers were freed at 8 p.m. local time and turned over to Salah Salah, a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

They said Salah took the two to Sunni Muslim leader Mustafa Saad, whose militia controls Sidon. Militiamen then drove the former captives to mostly Muslim West Beirut and delivered them to John Carolan, security chief for the U.N. agency.

The agency’s acting director, John Fennessy, said the two were taken to a hotel in mostly Christian East Beirut to rest.

Their release reduced the number of foreign hostages held by extremists in Lebanon to 22.

Members of a group called the Revolutionary Cells kidnaped the Scandinavians. In a handwritten Arabic statement delivered to a Western news agency in Beirut late Tuesday, the group announced their release. A photograph of the two accompanied the statement.

‘Proved Innocent’

The statement said the men have been “proved innocent” but did not say what they were accused of. In earlier statements, however, the group claimed the men were involved with the intelligence service of an unidentified foreign power.

The U.N. agency, which cares for an estimated 280,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, suspended most of its medical, social and educational services after the abductions.

The statement on Higgins, 43, of Danville, Ky., was delivered to a Western news agency in Beirut without a picture. He was abducted Feb. 17 near Tyre.

The statement was typewritten in Arabic and signed “Organization of the Oppressed of the Earth,” the name of the group that claimed responsibility for the abduction.

Linked to Riots

It said Israel’s tough response to 12 weeks of Palestinian riots in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Mideast peace shuttle of U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz, “make us more determined to try this criminal, Higgins.”

It repeated the claim that Higgins, who was on temporary duty as chief of the U.N. Truce Supervisory Organization in Lebanon, is a CIA agent.

The Organization of the Oppressed of the Earth is believed to be made up of pro-Iranian Shia Muslims. It has claimed responsibility for kidnaping 12 Lebanese Jews in Muslim West Beirut since 1984 and says it killed eight of them.

Higgins is one of nine American hostages in Lebanon.

The statement about Higgins said in part: “The criminal (President) Reagan is moving inside and outside Lebanon to ensure a quick release of Higgins so that he will not reveal secrets and make confessions. But we declare today that we have uncovered solid facts about an American-Israeli deal being hatched for south Lebanon.”