3 Europeans Released by Arab Captors : Hostages: French woman, daughter and Belgian boyfriend are freed in Beirut. They had been held for 29 months by Abu Nidal’s forces.

Three European hostages--a French woman, her Belgian boyfriend and their 2-year-old daughter--were freed Tuesday in Beirut by their radical Palestinian captors.

They had been held for 29 months by guerrillas of the Revolutionary Council of Fatah, headed by the shadowy terrorist Abu Nidal. The group is believed to still be holding four other Belgians captured with them.

The release of Jacqueline Valente, 32, Fernand Houtekins, 42, and their daughter, Sophie, on Tuesday followed an appeal for compassion last week by Libya’s leader, Col. Moammar Kadafi.

France appeared to have paved the way for the release in November, when it approved the long-delayed delivery of three Mirage jet airplanes to the Libyan armed forces. The aircraft were delivered last month, news agencies reported.

Embassy spokesman Francois Abi Saab told reporters that the freed hostages “were smiling and appeared to be in good health.”

“I embrace all my family. I am well, and the little one also,” AP quoted Valente as telling French reporters who were given exclusive access to the three at the embassy.

A chartered jet flew the three from Beirut to Villacoublay military airport near Paris. There, after arriving at 10:12 p.m., they got into a car and were driven away to an unspecified destination without making any public statement.

Relatives and supporters of eight American hostages and other Westerners held in Lebanon drew little solace from Tuesday’s release.

The kidnaping of Valente, Houtekins and their companions off a vessel in Mediterranean waters south of Israel has never been directly connected with the Beirut hostage situation, in which the captors are Shiite Muslim militants. The longest-held hostage, American Terry A. Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, last month marked his fifth year as a captive.

Despite indications of activity over the last two months, the observers said, there is no sign that there will be any sudden release for any of these hostages.

President Bush, in Canada for talks with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, said he does not know whether the release “has any implications at all” for the U.S. hostages in Lebanon.

“A few weeks ago, there was a flurry of understandable excitement about the release of these people,” Bush said. “And I had difficulty understanding where was all this coming from? What’s driving this news flurry?

“And I still don’t know the answer to that.”

But he added, “I would just repeat that goodwill begets goodwill. And a manifestation of goodwill would be the release of these American hostages.”

Chris Pearson, president of the group Friends of John McCarthy, a television cameraman who is one of three British hostages, said of the Valente party’s release: “Given the nature of their kidnaping--that they were taken by the Abu Nidal group . . . I don’t think it means the Western hostages in Beirut are any nearer release.”

“The release of hostages of any nationality by any group is always very welcome news,” said a spokesman for Anglican Archbishop Robert A. K. Runcie, for whom British hostage Terry Waite worked. “But the captors in this case are quite different to those holding the British hostages in Lebanon, so their release brings little direct comfort . . . beyond the hope that it might loosen up the situation of hostages in Lebanon generally.”

Deliverance for Valente, Houtekins and their daughter came in typical Beirut fashion:

According to an Associated Press report from the Lebanese capital, a convoy of three cars, curtains drawn, rolled up to the main gate of the French Embassy in the Muslim-populated western sector of the city.

Waiting just inside were Ambassador Rene Ala and other French officials, apparently forewarned that the three hostages were being released. Nearby, two other cars filled with gunmen kept watch as the European couple and the child, who was born in captivity, were turned over.

Valente, Houtekins, four other Belgians and two daughters of Valente by her divorced husband were seized by Abu Nidal’s guerrillas aboard the Silco, a converted trawler, off the Gaza Strip coast on Nov. 8, 1987.

The Palestinian captors said that Valente and the other passengers aboard the Silco were Jews and Israeli spies. Their families in Europe insisted they were Roman Catholics and simply adventurers and that the French woman had hoped to work her way to Australia and begin a new life there after her divorce.

Those captured along with Valente and Houtekins, and apparently still in captivity, are Houtekins’ brother Emmanuel, 44, his wife, Godelieve Kets, 39, and their children, Laurent, 19, and Valerie, 18. Houtekins told French reporters that his relatives were well.

“They have morale. They are holding firm,” he said.

Jan Hollants Van Loocke, a Belgian Foreign Ministry official, told reporters in Beirut on Monday that he was seeking their release. Walid Khaled, a Fatah Revolutionary Council spokesman, linked their freedom to an Arab sentenced to life imprisonment in Belgium for a 1980 grenade assault on some Jewish youths. A 15-year-old was killed and 20 people injured in the attack in Antwerp.

The fate of Valente’s second hostage-born child, another daughter, born last year, was uncertain. Wire service reports, quoting unidentified French sources, said the child died in captivity of a digestive illness.

The location of the Silco captives has never been known, and the release of Valente in Beirut was a mild surprise, since the Abu Nidal faction is reportedly now based in Libya.

Kadafi took an early hand in the fate of the captives. In response to appeals by Valente’s ex-husband, Pascal Betille, and direct French-Libyan negotiations, the Libyan leader personally--and with fanfare--arranged the release of the couple’s daughters, Virginie, then 5, and Marie-Laure, then 6. They were freed in Tripoli in December, 1988. Details of those negotiations have never been revealed.

The two girls were returned to their father.

Last week, Kadafi, who for the past two years has been trying to bury his image as an Arab radical and promoter of terrorism, called on Valente’s captors to free her and “her family” as a humanitarian gesture during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. In less than a week, his suggestion was carried out.

Libya’s official news agency Jana quoted Kadafi as saying that Abu Nidal’s group was “distancing” itself from its terrorist reputation by releasing the hostages.

French officials in Paris were quick to praise Kadafi on Tuesday for his role in releasing the hostages. A spokesman for President Francois Mitterrand said the French leader personally thanked Kadafi for his “key role in this happy development.”

France approved the delivery of three Mirage warplanes and radar equipment to the Libyan military last November. Weapons deliveries to Libya were banned under a 1986 embargo established by the 12-nation European Community. But French officials said that the weapons sales had been made before the ban and therefore did not fall under the embargo.

“Their release is part of the warplane deal,” a Palestinian source in Beirut said of Valente, Houtekins and their child.

A spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry denied Tuesday night that the release was linked to the supply of fighter planes.

“The Mirage jets that we supplied to Libya already belonged to them before the embargo,” the spokesman said.

The three planes--a Mirage F-1 and a two Mirage 5 aircraft--were delivered to Libya last month. Kadafi himself indicated at the beginning of March that relations between France and Libya had been “normalized” and that the “differences between the two countries are over.” In addition, France recently announced the resumption of grain sales to Libya and restored shipping and telecommunications links.

Times staff writer Rone Tempest, in Paris, contributed to this report.

BACKGROUND

Abu Nidal, whose real name is Sabri Banna, heads the Revolutionary Council of Fatah, one of the deadliest terrorist groups in the world. His faction broke with Yasser Arafat’s mainstream Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1974 after a PLO court convicted him of embezzling funds, sedition and murder and sentenced him to death. Over the years, Abu Nidal’s (his nom de guerre means Father of Struggle) group has been blamed for more than 100 terrorist raids including the December, 1985, attacks on airports in Rome and Vienna in which 20 people, including five Americans, died. His group, thought to be backed primarily by Libya, is believed to have as many as 500 members.