Kidnapers of Col. Higgins Say He’ll Be Tried as Spy

Kidnapers of U.S. Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins accused him today of spying and said they will try him for crimes against Lebanese and Palestinians.

“The interrogation with this criminal has been concluded and we shall put him in the hands of our nation when the time is right,” said a statement in the name of the Organization of the Oppressed of the World.

The typewritten, undated message in Arabic was delivered with a black-and-white photograph of Higgins to an international news agency in Muslim West Beirut.

“This criminal will be transferred today to the courts of the oppressed to be tried for the crimes he has committed, in accordance with the accusations against him,” it said.

The statement, on paper from a school notebook, was the fifth issued by the group since three bearded gunmen seized Higgins near the southern port of Tyre on Feb. 17.

Higgins, 43, was head of the Lebanon unit of the U.N. Truce Supervision Organization, an unarmed multinational observer force supervising Israel’s borders.

The statement accused Higgins of being a member of “an American coordination committee comprising the CIA, the Pentagon and State Department on the situations in Lebanon and Palestine.”

The statement came four days after the Christian Voice of Lebanon radio station reported Higgins had been killed by his captors. There was no confirmation of the radio report and the station has proved unreliable on hostage issues in the past.