Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 11, 1990 TAG: 9004110320
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: NICOSIA, CYPRUS LENGTH: Long
They had been held for 29 months by guerrillas of the Fatah-Revolutionary Council, headed by the shadowy terrorist Abu Nidal. The release followed an appeal for compassion last week by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
Jacqueline Valente, 32, Fernand Houtekins, 42, and their daughter Sophie, who was born in captivity, were delivered to the French Embassy in the Moslem-populated western sector of Beirut. Valente was wearing a skirt and a black leather jacket and Houtekins wore a gray suit. Embassy spokesman Francois Abi Saab told reporters that the three "were smiling and appeared to be in good health."
A chartered jet flew the three from Beirut to France, to the Villacoublay military airport near Paris. They arrived at 10:12 p.m., got into a car and were driven away to an unspecified destination without making any public statement.
Earlier, family members awaiting them there reacted with joy and tears:
"The nightmare is over and I tremble with joy," said Valente's mother, Brigitte.
"It is the end of our crusade against forgotten hostages," said brother-in-law Andre Metral.
However, the relatives and supporters of as many as 18 other Western hostages held in Lebanon - eight of them American - drew little solace from Tuesday's release.
The kidnapping of Valente, Houtekins and their companions off a ship in Mediterranean waters south of Israel has never been directly connected with the Beirut hostage situation, in which the captors are Shiite Moslem militants. The longest-held, American Terry Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press, last month marked his fifth year as a hostage.
Despite indications of activity over the past two months, the observers said, there was no sign that there would be any sudden release for any of the hostages in Lebanon.
Chris Pearson, president of the group Friends of John McCarthy, a television cameraman who is one of three British hostages, said of the Valente party's release: "Given the nature of their kidnapping - that they were taken by the Abu Nidal group . . . I don't think it means the Western hostages in Beirut are any nearer release."
"The release of hostages of any nationality by any group is always very welcome news," said a spokesman for Archbishop Robert Runcie, for whom British hostage Terry Waite worked. "But the captors in this case are quite different to those holding the British hostages in Lebanon, so their release brings little direct comfort . . . beyond the hope that it might loosen up the situation of hostages in Lebanon generally."
Valente, Houtekins, four other Belgians and two daughters of Valente by her divorced husband were seized by Abu Nidal's guerrillas aboard the Silco, a converted trawler, off the Gaza Strip coast Nov. 8, 1987.
The Palestinian captors said Valente and the other passengers aboard the Silco were Jews and Israeli spies. Their families in Europe insisted they were Roman Catholic and simply adventurers and that the French woman hoped to work her way to Australia and begin a new life there after her divorce.
Seized along with Valente and Houtekins, and apparently still held, were Houtekins' brother Emmanuel, 44, his wife, Godelieve Kets, 39, and their children, Laurent, 19, and Valerie, 18. Houtekins told French reporters that his relatives were well.
Jan Hollants Van Loocke, a Belgian foreign ministry official, told reporters in Beirut on Monday that he was seeking their release. Walid Khaled, a Fatah-Revolutionary Council spokesman, linked their freedom to an Arab sentenced to life imprisonment in Belgium for a 1980 grenade assault on some Jewish youths. A 15-year-old was killed and 20 people injured in the attack in Antwerp.
The fate of Valente's second hostage-born child, born last year, was unknown. Wire service reports, quoting unidentified French sources, said the child died in captivity of a digestive illness.
Gadhafi took an early hand in the fate of the captives. In response to appeals by Valente's ex-husband, Pascal Betille, and direct French-Libyan negotiations, the Libyan leader personally, and with fanfare, arranged the release of the couple's daughters, Virginie, then 5, and Marie-Laure, then 6. They were handed over in Tripoli in December 1988. Details of the negotiations have never been disclosed.
France appeared to have paved the way for Tuesday's release in November by approving the long-delayed delivery of three Mirage jet airplanes and radar equipment to the Libyan armed forces. Weapons delivery to Libya were banned under a 1986 embargo established by the 12-nation European Community. But French officials said that the weapons sales had been made before the ban and therefore did not fall under the embargo.
by CNB