Tortured Guard Slain by Hijackers : Terrorists Enraged After Bid to Refuel Plane Is Refused

The hijackers holding a Kuwaiti airliner at Larnaca airport shot and killed one of their hostages Saturday and dumped his nearly naked body on the tarmac after Cypriot authorities refused their demand to refuel the plane.

A Cypriot government spokesman said a medical examination of the slain man, identified as a Kuwaiti security guard, revealed that he had been “severely tortured” some hours before his death.

The security guard, who was not immediately named, was the first person to be killed by the hijackers since they commandeered the Kuwait Airways Boeing 747 last Tuesday in an attempt to coerce Kuwait into releasing 17 Shia Muslim militants convicted of several terrorist offenses, including the bombings of the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait in 1983.

‘Ambulance and Coffin’

“Send an ambulance and send a coffin,” one of the hijackers instructed the control tower moments before the man’s battered body, naked except for his undershorts, was tossed onto the tarmac.

“We need fuel,” the hijacker said. “Give us fuel or you will receive identical presents.”

Since landing in Larnaca on Friday evening, following a harrowing flight across the Middle East from Iran in search of an airport that would accept them, the hijackers repeatedly have been demanding fuel for the jumbo jet’s empty tanks.

The Cypriots have told them they can have the fuel only if they release their remaining hostages first.

Stalling for time, officials chatted with the hijackers from the control tower while they sought to persuade them to free more of their hostages, who include three members of Kuwait’s ruling family.

Shocked Into Silence

But the sight of the security guard’s body being hurled from the plane like a sack onto the tarmac below shocked the control tower into silence.

For nearly two hours, there was no communication between the tower and the blue-and-white jet parked in the middle of an otherwise deserted runway. Then, in the early afternoon, two Cypriot officials approached the plane along with a representative from the Cyprus office of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which had offered to help negotiate.

The negotiators made several trips to the plane throughout the course of the afternoon, initially shouting at the hijackers from the tarmac and later talking to them from the top of a mobile stairway positioned just outside the plane’s front left exit.

Finally, on their fourth trip to the plane, well after nightfall, the negotiators came away with a young Kuwaiti man whom the hijackers agreed to release as a “good-will gesture” toward Cypriot authorities.

“He is a young man about 25,” government spokesman Akis Fantis said. “He is in a state of shock but otherwise all right.”

The man’s release left between 45 and 48 hostages on board, the estimate varying according to how many hijackers there are. There were thought to be at least five gunmen aboard the plane, but Fantis said Saturday that Cypriot officials now believe there are as many as seven or eight.

‘A Hopeful Sign’

While Fantis called the young man’s release “a hopeful sign,” he cautioned that the negotiations remained at a standoff.

“We are at a deadlock. They insist on fuel first and we insist they release all the hostages first,” Fantis told reporters.

“We will let them go. They can have the fuel, but only if they release the hostages first,” he said.

He added that the hijackers had requested that medicines be sent to the plane and said that Cypriot authorities had agreed to provide them. It was not clear what kind of medicines the hijackers requested or why they wanted them. But earlier, before the security guard was killed, the hijackers were reported to have started beating passengers at random in another effort to put pressure on the Cypriots to refuel the plane.

Main Focus on Refueling

While the terrorists, who hijacked the jet on a Kuwait-bound flight from Bangkok early Tuesday, have said that their aim is to “free our 17 brothers in Kuwait,” the main focus of their negotiations with Cypriot authorities has been their demand for fuel to fly on to another, as yet undisclosed, destination.

With virtually every major airport in the Middle East now closed to them, it was not clear where the hijackers intended to go. During several terror-filled hours Friday, the plane was repeatedly refused permission to land at Beirut despite the pilot’s panic-stricken pleas that he had no fuel left and would have to crash into the sea.

It seemed unlikely that Iranian authorities would allow the plane to land again in their territory, following its departure from Mashhad airport in northeastern Iran early Friday.

Algiers Possible Destination

But Algiers has been suggested as one possible landing site, and Kuwaiti authorities have expressed fears that the hijackers may become so obsessed with emotions of revenge and martyrdom that they might try to dive bomb the jumbo jet into an important Kuwaiti government building, such as the emir’s palace.

The hijackers, all wearing masks, have still not identified themselves, but there seems to be little doubt now that they are Shia Muslims, most likely from Lebanon.

One report from Beirut quoted a Lebanese security source as saying that the hijackers had been identified as members of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah (Party of God) organization, which has also been demanding the release of the 17 Shias jailed in Kuwait.

Kuwait Refuses to Give In

Kuwait has firmly refused to meet the demands and, while it sent an official delegation to Cyprus, it has not taken part directly in the negotiations yet.

The Kuwaiti security officer was killed by three bullets to the head shortly after a mid-morning deadline set by the hijackers expired.

Hospital sources said he also sustained a serious blow to the kidneys, and Fantis told reporters that the post-mortem examination indicated that the man had also suffered prolonged torture between 18 and 24 hours before his death.