2 French Hostages Reportedly Released : Abu Nidal Group Says It Freed Girls; Mother, 5 Others Still Held

Two French girls were released Monday after being held hostage for more than a year with their mother and five Belgians, a spokesman for their Palestinian captors said.

Marie-Laure Betille, 7, and Virginie Betille, 6, left for Paris by plane, said Walid Khaled, spokesman for the radical Revolutionary Council of Fatah, which is headed by terrorist leader Abu Nidal.

“I ask their father, Pascal Betille, to be ready with lots of Christmas gifts to reunite with his daughters,” Khaled said.

He refused to say where the girls were released or to specify the flight they were on. There had been widespread speculation that the girls would be freed in Libya or Algeria.

In Paris, the French government said only that it continued to “hope for a speedy release” of the two girls.

Betille, who is separated from the girls’ mother, Jacqueline Valente, had spent the weekend in Lebanon along with the girls’ grandmother, Brigitte Valente, and another relative.

The three left for Paris on Monday, but the girls were not aboard that plane.

The Revolutionary Council of Fatah said Sunday that the girls would be freed as a Christmas gift to the children of the world.

“I’m disappointed because I am going without my two little darlings,” Betille said before leaving Beirut. “But I am carrying with me a promise that they are going to be released soon.”

Khaled said earlier the girls had been told of their imminent release and that their mother no longer objected.

In February, Valente said in a videotaped message released by her captors that she refused to let her daughters go without her.

Khaled released a new set of videotapes of Valente and the five Belgian captives Sunday. They said they were being treated well and sent season’s greetings to relatives and friends.

The captives did not disclose where they are being held but said the tapes were made Dec. 20. One said they are all living in the same apartment.

Khaled announced on Nov. 8, 1987, that his group had seized eight French and Belgian nationals aboard their French-registered yacht off the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip.

Valente gave birth to a baby girl in captivity and is due to deliver again in January, Khaled has said. Since her separation from Betille, Valente has been living with Fernand Houtekins, one of the five Belgian captives.

The other four captives are Houtekins’ elder brother, Emmanuel; Emmanuel’s wife, Godelieve, and the couple’s two children, Laurent, 17, and Valerie, 16.