Hijackers Free 12; Jetliner Refueled for Algiers Flight : 34 Hostages, Terrorists Still on Jet

Hijackers of a Kuwait Airways jumbo jet seized eight days ago released 12 of their estimated 46 captives today and ground crews refueled the plane for a flight to Algeria.

A short time later the gunmen asked the control tower at this Mediterranean airport for flight charts to travel to Algiers, then a voice told the control tower by radio: “All tanks full.”

Forty people were believed on board the aircraft after the latest release, including a half-dozen hijackers. Two hostages, both Kuwaiti military men, have been killed since the hijacking began last week when gunmen demanding freedom for 17 pro-Iranian terrorists held in Kuwait seized the plane.

The hijackers said in a statement they had not given up their demand for freedom for the 17 and would continue their journey.

The dozen hostages got off Flight 422 as two tanker trucks pumped 1,000 tons of fuel into the giant jetliner in nighttime darkness while three ambulances stood by on the tarmac.

Loud Bang Rings Out

Shortly before the hostages left the Kuwait Airways jet, its engines started and loud bangs rang out across the tarmac. Officials said the noises were caused not by gun or grenade fire but by the engines being restarted.

The fuel truck halted a short distance from the Boeing 747 but then resumed its approach.

The hijackers have repeatedly demanded fuel for the jet, which landed on Cyprus after a standoff at Mashhad airport in northeast Iran after being seized en route from Thailand to Kuwait.

A hijacker told the tower the released hostages included two Palestinians with Jordanian passports and 10 others who were sick, poor or had numerous children.

They said the releases were a “goodwill” gesture but added also that the Jordanian nationals were freed as a “present to the uprising in Palestine.”

Abu Ghazala, an official of the Palestine Liberation Organization which has been negotiating in the crisis, told a reporter: “Up to now everything is OK.”

‘OK for Everyone’

Asked if the plane would go to Algiers, he replied: “Algiers.” Asked what would happen there, he said: “It will be OK for everyone.”

PLO chairman Yasser Arafat was quoted earlier in the day as saying the hijackers wanted to fly to Algeria and “arrangements are being made to this end.” The Kuwait News Agency said Arafat told reporters in Kuwait he expected the hijacking to end tonight.

The new developments in the hijacking, at eight days one of the longest in history, came after three meetings between the hijackers and PLO representatives.

The hijackers said earlier in the day that they had on death shrouds. One hijacker, in a statement radioed to the Larnaca Airport control tower, cited verses from the Koran usually read at funerals that said “those killed in the name of God are always alive.”

“We have decided to call our plane the plane of greatest martyrdom and death,” they said. “Death with glory is better than life under humiliation. . . . We call on the Kuwaiti people to revolt against the Kuwaiti dictatorship. We’d like to point out we’re not against the people of Kuwait, but against the regime.”

They added: “We have decided to wear the death shrouds under our clothes and that either all our 17 brothers come back to us or else we shall meet, in our shrouds, in the heaven of eternal happiness.”

Cypriot government spokesman Akis Fantis said today the chances of storming the plane at Larnaca had been “zero.” In London, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Javad Larijana said Iran had offered to take the jet by force after it was forced to land in Iran last week, but Kuwait rejected the idea.