Marine Must Die, Kidnapers Say

Kidnapers holding U.S. Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins said in a statement today that they have sentenced him to death as a spy for Israel.

“We have issued the irrevocable sentence to execute this American spy,” said the typewritten statement in Arabic signed by the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth and delivered to the Beirut newspaper An Nahar. Higgins, 43, of Danville, Ky., was head of a 76-man observer group attached to the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon when he was kidnaped near the port city of Tyre last Feb. 17. Washington has denied he was involved in espionage.