Returned Body Identified as Col. Higgins : Hostages: American, U.N. personnel say remains are those of former Marine who was abducted in 1988.

The body of slain Lt. Col. William Richards Higgins was positively identified Monday and released to officials of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.

American officials and U.N. personnel who served under Higgins in southern Lebanon verified the identity of the 44-year-old former Marine at the morgue of the American University Hospital. The body, in a casket draped with the American flag, later Monday was moved by ambulance flanked by two cars to the U.S. Embassy.

Embassy officials made no comment on the identification, nor was there any word on when and how Higgins’ body will be flown to the United States.

In Washington, White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said a formal official identification will be carried out at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the receiving point for service personnel killed overseas.

Higgins, of Danville, Ky., was commander of a 76-member U.N. observer group monitoring the Lebanese-Israeli border when he was kidnaped Feb. 17, 1988. Within months of his abduction, a photograph was released showing a stooped, emaciated man--clearly Higgins.

On July 31, 1989, Higgins’ kidnapers, the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, claimed they had executed him in retaliation for Israel’s abduction of a Shiite Muslim cleric in southern Lebanon. They released a videotape showing a man bearing some resemblance to Higgins hanging from a gallows.

But U.S. sources in Lebanon maintained the belief that Higgins died of torture in December, 1988, after an escape attempt.

The body was found by a police patrol Sunday after an anonymous caller phoned in precise directions to a school in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Dr. Ahmed Harati, Lebanese state coroner, conducted two examinations using dental records and hair samples along with other data before making a positive identification.

The return of Higgins’ body was another successful step in the hostage negotiations of U.N. envoy Giandomenico Picco, who returned to the region last week. He has won the release of all American and British hostages in Lebanon since August.

At the United Nations in New York, Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar said, “A dark chapter in the history of U.N. peacekeeping forces has been closed.”

He said he has sent the widow, Marine Maj. Robin Higgins, and the Higgins family his “heartfelt condolences on this sad occasion.”

Higgins’ widow expressed relief that the ordeal surrounding her husband’s captivity “seems to be moving toward a conclusion.”

“This is not the end result that we would have hoped for,” she said in a statement released by the Marine Corps. “We are not joining in the joy of the families of returning hostages.

“Fourteen years ago on my birthday, Rich married me,” she said. “Now, it appears that 14 years later--today--he is returning to me in a flag-draped coffin.”

In another chapter of the hostage story, a U.N. spokesman criticized Israel for abducting three Lebanese in a commando raid in southern Lebanon last Friday. The spokesman said Perez de Cuellar “deeply regrets” the action, which, the spokesman insisted, “already has had a negative effect on the secretary general’s efforts.”

Times staff writers Stanley Meisler and Melissa Healy in Washington contributed to this report. Raschka is a Times special correspondent in Beirut.