BEIRUT, Feb. 1, Reuter: An underground Moslem group has threatened to kill four university professors, including three Americans, kidnapped in Beirut.
Two other foreign hostages, both West Germans, were said to have written to their government and families.
But there was still no news of British church envoy, Terry Waite, missing since January 20 on his mission to get hostages freed.
Islamic Jihad (Holy War) for the liberation of Palestine, which claimed responsibility for kidnapping the professors, said in a statement, “We set a nonexpendable, one week deadline for the exchange to take place, after which period keeping the four Americans alive will not be of use to us”.
“We will execute them and throw their corpses on the garbage cans of Cyprus”, it added.
One of the four professors is an Indian national with a U.S. residence permit.
Another statement from the group said the 400 prisoners should be flown to Damascus aboard a Red Cross plane and the four hostages would then be freed.
All four were kidnapped on a West Beirut campus by gunmen posing as police a week ago. They are Americans Jesse Turner, Robert Polhill, and Alan Steen and Indian Mithileshwar Singh.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 6, 1987
