Faction Frees Swiss Held in Lebanon for 10 Months : Hostages: Captors don’t explain why a second Red Cross worker is not freed.

A Swiss Red Cross worker who had been held hostage in Lebanon for 10 months was freed Wednesday and handed over to Swiss authorities, officials and witnesses said.

Witnesses said they saw Emanuel Christen being handed to Swiss authorities shortly after midnight in front of the Syrian Foreign Ministry.

Christen, 33, was kidnaped Oct. 6, 1989, along with fellow Red Cross worker Elio Erriquez, 24.

A group calling itself the Palestinian Revolutionary Squads said in a statement Wednesday that he had been freed. The Syrian Foreign Ministry and Red Cross in Geneva confirmed the release.

The witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Christen was handed to Swiss Charge d’Affaires Fritz Kuehni and that he was then driven to the Swiss Embassy.

The statement from the Palestinian Revolutionary Squads did not explain why only one of the Swiss men was released.

That was the first time since their abductions that a group had claimed to hold Christen and Erriquez.

“After we have promised yesterday night to release the two delegates of the International Red Cross in Lebanon within 24 hours, one of them, Emanuel Christen, has been set free and handed over to a representative of Brig. Gen. Ghazi Kenaan at 6 p.m. this evening,” said the statement, handwritten in Arabic.

Kenaan is the chief of Syrian army intelligence in Lebanon.

Christen and Erriquez were abducted outside an artificial limbs center in Sidon, a port city 25 miles south of Beirut.

Police in Sidon had blamed their abduction on the Libyan-financed Revolutionary Council of Fatah, led by Palestinian terrorist mastermind Abu Nidal. That group denied the charge.

A statement Tuesday said that the decision to free the Red Cross captives was made in response to the wishes of Syrian President Hafez Assad, Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi and Algerian President Chadli Bendjedid.

The statement also said the group had guarantees that their demands would be met, but it did not specify what those were.

Six Americans are still among hostages held in Lebanon.