BEIRUT Reuter: Islamic Jihad linked the fate of its American hostages in Lebanon with US. Journalist Micholas Daniloff facing spying charges in Moscow.

A Typewritten statement delivered to an international new: agency in Beirut by the clandestine pro-Iranian group accused President Reagan of misleading the American public.

“It seems the American government and Reagan personally are fooling the American people for they made concessions in the case of Daniloff” the statement said.

The typed statement accompanied by a colour photograph of US. hostage David Jacobsen added “This aroused questions among the hostages who compared what the government was doing in the Daniloff case and what it was doing in their own case.”

Daniloff Moscow correspondent of the Weekly U.S News and World Report accused of spying for Washington was freed from a Soviet prison last week.

His release into the custody of U.S diplomats came as US. authorities similarly freed a suspected Soviet spy physicist Gennady Zakhaaroy into the custody of Soviet diplomats

Four days ago the sister of associated press correspondent = Terry Anderson one of the three Americans held by Islamic Jihad urged Washington to negotiate for the freedom of hostages in Lebanon just as it had negotiated for Daniloff in Moscow.

Article extracted from this publication >> September 19, 1986