Hostage Waite Reportedly May Be Freed

Lebanon’s leading newspaper reported Saturday that Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite and some other Westerners held hostage by pro-Iranian Shiite Muslim groups may be released this week.

An Nahar, which has a record of accurate reporting on the captives, attributed its short report to unidentified, informed sources.

The independent, Arabic-language newspaper indicated that the releases would follow visits to Syria and possibly to Lebanon by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati.

Velayati is to visit Damascus “in the next two days for consultations with the Syrian command” of President Hafez Assad and might go to Beirut for talks with President Elias Hrawi, the report said.

“The release of a number of foreign hostages held in Lebanon, topped by Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite, is possible next week,” the newspaper said.

It gave no other details. The one-paragraph reference to the hostages was part of the paper’s main front-page story.

An Nahar did not indicate the nationalities of the hostages to be released, beyond identifying Waite. But the report was the latest of several to indicate that foreign captives would be freed in the wake of the renewal of diplomatic ties between Britain and Iran.

The two nations restored ties last month after an 18-month break over Iranian calls for the slaying of British author Salman Rushdie, author of the book “The Satanic Verses,” which Iran said defamed Islam.

Hussein Moussawi, the Shiite mentor of some hostage-holding factions, said Sept. 29 that the four British hostages would benefit from the development.

Moussawi said, however, that the six American captives were not expected to be released soon because of the U.S. military deployment in the Persian Gulf following Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait.

“Improving relations and the new British conduct toward Iran would serve British interests in general, including the British hostages,” said Moussawi, whose Islamic Amal movement falls under the Hezbollah umbrella.

Waite, 51, the personal envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury Robert A. K. Runcie, disappeared Jan. 20, 1987. He had left his hotel in Muslim West Beirut for a meeting with Islamic Jihad, the underground faction believed holding American hostages Terry A. Anderson and Thomas Sutherland.

No group has claimed responsibility for Waite’s abduction, but former Irish hostage Brian Keenan, released in August, said he was held with the Anglican envoy.

Anderson, 42, chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, is the longest-held foreign hostage in Lebanon. He was kidnaped March 16, 1985.

There is another British hostage besides Waite: TV cameraman John McCarthy, 33. He was kidnaped April 17, 1986, as he drove to Beirut airport.

Two other Britons are still missing but presumed dead: World War II flier Jack Mann and writer Alec Collett.

Mann, 76, was kidnaped in West Beirut on May 13, 1989. His wife reported hearing of his death later that year from an anonymous informant.

Collett, 67, a New York-based writer on assignment in Lebanon for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, was seized March 25, 1985.

The Revolutionary Organization of Socialist Muslims, believed linked to Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, said April 23, 1986, that it hanged Collett in retaliation for Britain’s support of U.S. air raids on Libya. No body has been found.

The Western captives, held mainly by pro-Iranian factions in Lebanon, include six Americans, two Germans and an Italian.