Algeria Silent on Hijackers; Deal Indicated

Algerian authorities drew a veil of secrecy around the whereabouts of the hijackers of a Kuwaiti airliner who surrendered early Wednesday after freeing their remaining hostages at the Algiers airport.

However, it was clear from information provided by a number of sources that a secret deal had been arranged to give the hijackers safe passage out of Algeria, and some reports said they had already left.

Kuwaiti sources said the hijackers, who are now said to have numbered as many as nine, were expected to be flown either to Beirut or Tehran as part of the deal under which they agreed to free their 31 hostages.

Looking haggard and exhausted, the hostages filed off the Kuwait Airways jumbo jet shortly after dawn on Wednesday, 16 days after their homeward-bound flight from Bangkok turned into an odyssey of terror that took them to Iran, Cyprus and finally Algeria--all without their knowledge.

“We never knew where we were,” said Mubarak Khaled, a 33-year-old Kuwaiti meteorologist, who told reporters that the hijackers kept the window shades of the plane drawn throughout the ordeal. “We could only guess where we were by the food” sent on board at the various stopovers, he added.

The plane’s purser, Abdel Monem Mahmoud, said after his release that the worst time was “when they put a gun to the head of one of the passengers. Their eyes behind their masks were sharp and expressionless, like those of a shark.”

Algerian officials refused to discuss the location of the hijackers, who are believed to be Shia Muslim militants closely affiliated with Iran. However, diplomats noted that Algeria was not expected to want the terrorists to remain on its soil any longer than necessary.

Military Plane

Speculation that they may have already left was fueled when an Algerian air force transport plane was seen taking off from Houari Boumedienne Airport shortly after the terrorists were believed to have disembarked from the plane, getting into several waiting cars hidden from reporters on the far side of the aircraft.

Algerian officials refused to comment on either the transport plane’s occupants or its destination, but other Algerian sources said it was “extremely unusual” for a military airplane to be using Algiers’ civilian airport.

In Washington, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the Reagan Administration was “disappointed that there’s no indication that the hijackers, who murdered two innocent travelers, are going to be brought to justice.”

“We strongly support the government of Kuwait’s unflinching stand against terrorist blackmail and their policy of making no concessions to the hijackers,” he said.

Terms Unclear

It was still not clear why the hijackers agreed to surrender on terms that appeared to fall far short of their demand that Kuwait release 17 Shia Muslim militants convicted of bomb attacks 1869488244in 1983.

However, the breakthrough in the negotiations that Algerian mediators have been conducting ever since the plane landed here last Wednesday appeared to come during the night, when the negotiators secretly visited the plane under the cover of darkness.

Shortly before dawn, Hadi Khediri, Algeria’s interior minister, announced that a deal had been struck. He gave no details, and the official Kuwaiti news agency said that the tiny gulf emirate had not backed down from its refusal to free the 17 imprisoned terrorists.

Could Be Commuted

However, a Kuwaiti official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, noted that several of the terrorists have either been sentenced to death or are serving terms of life imprisonment. The sentences, he suggested, could be commuted “sometime” in the future.

At the same time, Deutsche Press Agentur reported from Beirut that the release of four potential hijackers who were captured by police in Bangkok was one of the keys to the ending of the hijacking.

Quoting an unnamed fundamentalist Lebanese Muslim source, the news agency said the final deal was struck in Beirut between Algerian diplomats and Imad Fayez Mughniya, who is believed to be a leader of the pro-Iranian Islamic Jihad.

According to the source, Mughniya’s original plan was to stage a double hijacking in Bangkok, but Thai authorities captured the second team minutes before they boarded the targeted jet, which was not identified.

Skills as Mediator

For resource-poor Algeria, whose prestige in the Arab world stems from its special skills as a mediator, negotiating a peaceful end to the bizarre and bloody hijacking was a major diplomatic victory, Arab and Western analysts agreed.

However, Algerian officials clearly were concerned about the possibility that they might be blamed for abetting terrorism by letting the hijackers go.

Khediri stressed that the agreement reached with the hijackers was worked out in close consultation with Kuwait, and he warned against any attempts by third parties to obstruct the bargain.

He did not name the other parties, but some observers believed he was referring to the United States, which is understood to have urged Algeria not to let the hijackers go.

Link to TWA Hijack

The United States has an interest in the hijacking, because one of the terrorists thought to have been on board the Kuwaiti plane is also suspected of involvement in the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner to Beirut, in which an American Navy diver, Robert Dean Stethem, was slain.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley said Hassan Izzaldin was identified as the suspect and is under an existing U.S. arrest warrant. She also said “we’re inclined to believe” the hijackers are members of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah (Party of God), a Lebanese group.

In the case of the Kuwaiti hijacking, there is an additional complication because of mounting evidence that the hijackers received material assistance, and possibly even orders, from the Iranian government.

Iran has denied responsibility for the hijacking, but a number of hostages released in Cyprus, where the hijackers also killed two passengers, said that at least one of the terrorists board1701060724northeastern Iran, bringing machine guns and other heavy equipment on board with him.

Other sources said that intelligence information also clearly indicates that the Iranians were behind the hijacking.

No Fingerprints

The passengers freed in Algiers on Wednesday said the hijackers went to great lengths to conceal their identities, wiping the plane free of fingerprints before leaving.

“That was the first indication we had that our release was imminent,” said Kadar al Kedi, a 31-year-old Kuwaiti businessman.

One hijacker, who was believed to have boarded the plane in Mashhad, appeared to be in charge of the others and went to even greater lengths to remain anonymous, as if he feared being identified, several of the passengers said.

He never removed his light blue hood and “never spoke aloud, but always whispered his instructions to the other hijackers,” Khaled said.

Times staff writer James Gerstenzang, in Washington, contributed to this story.