Kidnapers Free Church Envoy Waite and American Professor : Hostage crisis: The breakthrough comes amid reports that Muslims have pledged to release the three remaining U.S. men held in Lebanon by the end of the month.

Terry Waite, the British church envoy who disappeared into Lebanon’s opaque underworld while working to free two American hostages, was released Monday along with U.S. hostage Thomas M. Sutherland after both had been captives for years.

The release, the most significant breakthrough in the nearly decade-old hostage crisis, came amid reports that Shiite Muslim kidnapers have pledged to free the three remaining American hostages by the month’s end, perhaps beginning within the next five days.

A pale, red-eyed Waite, talking publicly for the first time after he was handed over by Syrian authorities to British Ambassador Andrew Green, issued a strong plea for “peaceful, humane and civilized ways” of settling problems in the Middle East. He said that one of his kidnapers, in the hours before his release, expressed regret for the hostage-taking in Lebanon.

“He . . . said to me that, ‘We apologize for having captured you. We recognize now that was a wrong thing to do, that holding hostages achieves no useful, constructive purpose.’ ”

Waite, 52, said he was also told that Beirut University College professor Alann Steen, 52, and financial administrator Joseph J. Cicippio, 61, two of three Americans remaining in captivity, could be released by the end of the month, perhaps within the next five days.

Terry A. Anderson, 44, the Associated Press’ chief Middle East correspondent and the longest-held captive in Lebanon, could be free by the month’s end, he said.

Sutherland, a 60-year-old college professor and one of the men whom Waite was sent to free when he disappeared in Lebanon on Jan. 20, 1987, talked spiritedly about his own nearly 6 1/2 years in captivity.

He teased Waite about his failed mission. “All I can say about the English, they take a hell of a long time to get things done,” he said. “He came to get me out five years ago, and it’s taken him five years to get out. But finally he’s taking me home, and I’m very happy about that.”

Sutherland was flown today to Frankfurt, Germany, aboard a U.S. military plane. Fog and rain prevented the usual routine of a freed hostage being taken by helicopter to the nearby U.S. hospital in Wiesbaden. Instead, he was bundled into a limousine with U.S. Ambassador Robert Kimmitt for the trip.

A dozen rain-soaked hospital patients and staff members stood on the balconies in the chilly dawn to cheer Sutherland. Burying his face in a pink bouquet, he exalted, “I haven’t seen flowers in 6 1/2 years!”

Sutherland told reporters, “I’ve never felt so good in all my life as I feel now.” His wife, Jean, was expected to arrive later today. Sutherland said he plans to give her “a tremendous kiss.”

“I’m going to thank her for being so faithful, for staying in Beirut,” he said.

Asked if he had news of the pending release of any other hostages, Sutherland said, “They should be coming out shortly.”

Waite was flown on a Royal Air Force jet to Cyprus, after being reunited with his brother, Donald, at the home of the British ambassador in Damascus. Waite was to remain overnight in Cyprus before flying on to England.

The two men brought to six the number of hostages released since August, when U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar began efforts to negotiate freedom for the remaining captives in Lebanon. The three Americans, two Germans and an Italian are thought to be the only Westerners still held.

Predictions by Waite, Perez de Cuellar and Syria’s deputy foreign minister that all remaining hostages could be freed soon, along with the release of Waite, one of the Shiite Muslims’ most prominent captives, raised speculation that an end to the long-running hostage drama could be imminent.

The Qatar news agency quoted an unidentified spokesman for Islamic Jihad, the group that held Waite and Sutherland and still holds Anderson, as saying it expects Israel to reciprocate by releasing another batch of Arab prisoners. The spokesman said he hopes that Shiite Muslim cleric Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid, kidnaped by Israeli paratroopers in 1989, would be among those freed.

Israel already has released 66 of more than 300 Arab prisoners being detained mostly in South Lebanon. It did so after receiving information it had long sought about the fates of several Israeli soldiers missing in Lebanon since as long ago as 1982. But Israel is unlikely to free a key bargaining chip such as Obeid before there is word about the fate of Ron Arad, a British-born Israeli air force navigator whose fighter jet was shot down in October, 1986. He is believed to be alive.

In Los Angeles, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said he welcomes the release of Sutherland and Waite but remains “upset” and “disappointed” over the missing Israeli servicemen.

“I know personally the families of all these people that are coming to me to share with me their sorrow, their concern,” Shamir said at a press conference in Beverly Hills, where he was ending a four-day visit to Southern California. “But so far, despite the efforts of the secretary general of the United Nations, we have no news, no positive news, about their whereabouts and about their release,” he said.

In Damascus, Waite offered less optimism about the prospects for the immediate release of two German captives in Lebanon, Thomas Kemptner and Heinrich Struebig. Their release in the past has been linked to the fate of two Lebanese Shiites imprisoned in Germany for terrorist crimes.

Waite said that he asked his captor on Monday about the Germans. “I’m sorry to say that at that point he could give me no further positive information, but he did say that he hoped very much that that matter too would be cleared up eventually, and as soon as possible,” Waite said.

Sutherland was kidnaped June 9, 1985. According to reports, gunmen in two cars shot out the tires of a limousine driving him from the Beirut airport. Sutherland had just returned to Lebanon after attending his daughter’s college graduation in the United States.

Sutherland said Monday that he spent most of his nearly 6 1/2 years in captivity with Anderson, chained to a wall for all but 10 minutes a day. He said Anderson, who was kidnaped March 16, 1985, is healthy and in good spirits, and has been writing poetry that he hopes to publish. “He is no longer chained to the wall, thank God, (but he is) still in a room that has very little fresh air and no daylight whatsoever,” Sutherland added.

He said he “couldn’t have made it” without Anderson’s company: “Terry Anderson for me was a very big challenge for the first couple of years. He’s very, very, very bright, and it was humiliating for me to have to cope with his tremendous brain. He’s a man who never should have been kidnaped. He was, as I hope some of the rest of us were, doing his very best for the world, and for Lebanon, and reporting objectively about what was happening in Lebanon.

“They never should have picked him up,” he said. “They never should have picked any of us up, because I agree with Terry Waite, that kidnaping was a great evil.”

Waite has been, perhaps, the best known of the Western hostages, because of his globe-trotting exploits on behalf of earlier hostages and his rumored meetings with former Lt. Col. Oliver L. North in the months before the Iran-Contra affair came to light.

As the personal envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Waite tried to present himself as independent of any of the governments involved in the Mideast quagmire and successfully negotiated the release of four Britons held by Libyan leader Col. Moammar Kadafi in 1984. Later, he had a role in the release of three Americans held in Lebanon: Father Lawrence M. Jenco, Rev. Benjamin Weir and David P. Jacobsen.

It was on Waite’s fifth visit to Beirut, after Britain had broken relations with Syria over the attempted bombing of an Israeli airliner in London and after the eruption of the Iran-Contra affair, that he tried to negotiate the freedom of Anderson and Sutherland.

On Jan. 20, 1987, he left his hotel in Beirut for a meeting with Islamic Jihad representatives. He was taken by his bodyguards to the home of an intermediary and was not seen again publicly until Monday, a few hours after Islamic Jihad issued a terse statement in Beirut.

“In the last years, we’ve lived under some of the suffering of the people of Lebanon,” Waite told reporters after his release. “We’ve been under shellfire constantly, and to be under shellfire when you’re chained to the wall is not pleasant. So we’ve lived through that suffering, and we and all hostages would plead with those who are holding the people of south Lebanon . . . to release them soon, to put an end to this problem, put an end to terrorism and find peaceful, humane and civilized ways of resolving the many complex problems that face the people of the Middle East.”

Waite and Sutherland expressed appreciation for the efforts of family and friends around the world who kept up pressure for the release of hostages in Lebanon.

Their release followed the arrival in the region of Perez de Cuellar’s personal envoy, Giandomenico Picco, who has been traveling between Beirut and Damascus over the past few days.

Times staff writer Dean Murphy in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

Two Freed, Six Remain

Hostage name, age, country, and date taken captive:

Terry Anderson, 44, American, 3/16/85

Thomas M. Sutherland, 60, American, 6/9/85

Alberto Molinari, 72, Italian, 9/11/85

Joseph J. Cicippio, 61, American, 9/12/86

Terry Waite, 52, British, 1/20/87

Alaan Steen, 52, American, 1/24/87

Heinrich Struebig, 50, German, 5/16/89

Thomas Kemptner, 30, German, 5/16/89