Frail and Angry, British Hostage Mann Is Freed : Mideast: Release of 77-year-old in Lebanon appears to be the result of a still-secret deal for captive exchanges.

Briton Jack Mann, frail and angry at 77, the oldest Western hostage held in Lebanon, was freed Tuesday night, ending a 28-month ordeal.

Released in a clandestine operation here, Mann arrived two hours later in Damascus, hoarsely telling reporters of the harsh treatment he received as a political captive.

“My voice has gone after two years of chaining,” explained the frail, bewhiskered former pilot. “This morning I started another dreadful day. . . . I wondered how much longer, how much longer. Wondering how many more months I’ve got to stay here.

“I can’t say enough really about this great welcome,” Mann said of the day that started in frustration and ended with his delivery into the hands of Andrew Green, Britain’s ambassador to Syria. Mann’s wife, Sunny, flew to Damascus from a British air base in Cyprus to rejoin the man she was once convinced was dead.

Mann’s release appeared to restore a delicate, still-secret deal for captive exchanges that would, as his kidnapers said in the jargon of diplomacy, “speed up the close of the detainees’ and hostages’ file.”

The plan, personally negotiated by U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar and some of his top aides, went off track last Thursday when the Revolutionary Justice Organization withdrew a pledge to release Mann, a World War II Spitfire pilot in the Battle of Britain, on grounds that Israel had failed to live up to its end of the deal.

Early this month, as part of the exchange, Israel freed 51 Lebanese prisoners and turned over the remains of nine Muslim guerrillas to Lebanese officials. Mann’s kidnapers insisted that the deal had called for the release of 80 prisoners.

The sequence of exchanges has been carefully balanced, according to diplomats with knowledge of the U.N. formula that seeks to resolve one of the Middle East’s most dramatic and painful problems.

“The big difference, this time, is that the United Nations is involved,” one diplomat told a Times reporter in Damascus last week. “Everyone seems to agree that the time has come to free the hostages. We just need to see how many we can get out before the pillars holding up the negotiations collapse.”

Each party to the plan is taking it a step at a time. Advised of Mann’s release, Yossi Olmert, director of the Israeli government press office, said Tuesday night: “It is, of course, a positive and welcome development. . . . We hope also Israel’s missing servicemen will be returned back soon to Israel. We are waiting for more positive developments.”

In Iran, a top Foreign Ministry official predicted that Perez de Cuellar’s formula will free all prisoners and hostages by January. In an article in Tuesday’s editions of the Tehran Times, Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Mohammed Besharati claimed that “all hostages, irrespective of their nationalities will be able to go home.”

The Associated Press reported that an advance copy of the Tehran newspaper’s editions for today predicted the release of two hostages, a Briton and an American, as early as this weekend. The article did not speculate on the identity of the American.

Five Americans are still held in Lebanon: educators Joseph J. Cicippio, Alann Steen, Thomas M. Sutherland and Jesse Turner and journalist Terry A. Anderson, the Beirut bureau chief of Associated Press who was abducted in March, 1985, and is the longest-held Western hostage.

Cicippio is held by the Revolutionary Justice Organization, the same group that claimed to hold Mann. The American’s photo accompanied the communique saying Mann would be freed. There is no apparent pattern to which the kidnap cells will release a hostage. But the last American freed, Edward A. Tracy, was also held by the Revolutionary Justice Organization.

The operation that freed Mann remained a mystery Tuesday night. Beirut journalists had been advised that he would be released at the Beau Rivage Hotel in West Beirut, and some 50 journalists and photographers had gathered there waiting. But Mann never appeared and was not seen by the press until he showed up in Damascus.

The feisty Briton and his wife had lived in Beirut for 43 years when he was snatched off the street in daylight on May 12, 1989. Mann had argued with family, friends and the British government, who wanted the couple to leave when kidnapings became rampant, that he was too old to be a victim.

One reason the couple remained in Beirut was that his wife continued to earn money giving riding lessons at a stable near a Palestinian refugee camp.

When abducted, Mann was already in poor health. In World War II, he was shot down six times by enemy fire. It was while he was recovering from burns in the last crash that he met his wife. After retiring as a pilot for Middle East Airlines, he worked as manager of a bar in West Beirut. Because of the fighting in Beirut, the bar closed several years ago after it was the target of a bomb blast that killed two customers. The Mann’s apartment was also damaged in a bomb blast and one of their cars was blown up.

The original claim for his abduction came from a group calling itself Armed Struggle Cells. But no proof, either a photograph or photocopy of an identification card, accompanied their communique.

Not until earlier this month when the Revolutionary Justice Organization released a statement and photo of Mann was anyone sure the ailing hostage was alive. His wife received what she called credible information in September, 1989, that he had died in captivity.

Mann’s release leaves only one Briton, churchman Terry Waite, still captive. But Waite, kidnaped in January, 1987, is considered along with the American journalist Anderson to be the kidnapers’ highest cards in the proposed series of exchanges. They most likely will be the last to be put in play.

On the other side, the ace among Muslim captives is Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid, a 39-year-old Shiite Muslim cleric abducted from his home in a southern Lebanese village by Israeli commandoes in July, 1989.

Top officials of the Iranian-influenced, Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah organization have insisted that Obeid must be freed if the mutual releases are to continue. But the Israelis say they will not consider turning him loose until they get a satisfactory accounting of soldiers and fliers they have lost in battles with their Muslim neighbors.

Raschka reported from Beirut and Williams reported from Nicosia, Cyprus. Times staff writer Rone Tempest, who previously was on assignment in Damascus, Syria, also contributed to this story.

Still Waiting for Freedom

Terry A. Anderson: Chief Mideast correspondent for Associated Press. Born Oct. 27, 1947, in Lorain, Ohio. Kidnaped by Islamic Jihad on March, 16, 1985. Longest-held hostage in Lebanon.

Joseph J. Cicippio: Acting comptroller of American University in Beirut. Born Sept. 13, 1930, in Valley Forge, Pa. Seized Sept. 12, 1986, by Revolutionary Justice Organization.

Alann Steen: Communications instructor at Beirut University College. Born April 22, 1939, in Boston. Taught at Humboldt State University and Chico State University in California. Kidnaped Jan. 24, 1987, by Islamic Jihad for Liberation of Palestine.

Thomas M. Sutherland: Acting dean of agriculture at American University in Beirut. An American citizen, born May 3, 1931, in Glasgow, Scotland. Seized by Islamic Jihad on June 9, 1985.

Jesse Turner: Mathematics-computer science professor at Beirut University College. Born July 30, 1947, in Boise, Ida. Kidnaped Jan. 24, 1987, by Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine.

Terry Waite: Envoy for Anglican church of Britain. Born May 31, 1939. He helped to gain release of captives held by Iran and Libya. Kidnaped on Jan. 20, 1987, when he went to meet representatives of Islamic Jihad.

Alberto Molinari, 72. Italian businessman who had lived in Lebanon more than 30 years, kidnaped Sept. 11, 1985.

Thomas Kemptner, 30, and Heinrich Struebig, 50. German employees of Asme Humanitas Relief Agency, kidnaped May 16, 1989.