The World - News from June 8, 1989

A Japanese monk released recently after 13 years in a Vietnamese prison said there were American soldiers held with him, Japan’s Kyodo News Service reported. Iwanobu Yoshida, 65, imprisoned for political reasons, told the news agency there were five or six American soldiers alive when he was released from the Hanoi camp in January. “There were about 10 Americans when I was first captured. . . . I heard all of them were beaten and tortured as I was,” Yoshida said. He added that he could not communicate with the Americans because he could not speak English, but he heard the Vietnamese guards referring to them as “Americans.”