CIA-RDP96-00789R000400020003-3

Washington Post 16 june 89
Gadhafi Helps.Gain -Release-RDP96-00789R00040002006
Of Belgian Held in Lebanon
By Nora Boustany
Washington Post Foreign Service
BEIRUT, June 15-A Belgian
physician taken hostage over a year
ago in southern Lebanon was freed
unharmed in Sidon this afternoon
and taken to Damascus amid re-
ports that Belgium may have struck
a deal by promising to unfreeze
trade contracts with Libya.
Jan Cools, 32, a general practi-
tioner working for Norwac, the
Norwegian Aid Committee, was
seized at gunpoint on May 21,
1988, after leaving the Rashidiyeh
Palestinian refugee camp in south-
ern Lebanon.
Members of the Fatah Revolu-
tionary Council, a radical Palestin-
ian group led by Abu Nidal, were
instrumental in his release despite
repeated denials they were involved
in his abduction. An obscure group
calling itself Soldiers of the Truth
announced yesterday that it would
free him in response to an appeal by
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
Cools, who told reporters he was
treated reasonably well by his cap-
tors, specifically thanked Gadhafi
for helping gain his release.
Belgian Foreign Trade Minister
Robert Urbain traveled to Sidon
with Belgian diplomats based here
to receive the released hostage at
the home of Mustafa Saad, a leading
Sidon Sunni Moslem politician.
Belgian Foreign Minister Leo
Tindemans, apparently circum-
vented in the negotiations leading
to the alleged Libyan-Belgian ar-
rangement, suggested in Brussels.
that Urbain may have reached a
deal with Gadhafi that would violate
sanctions imposed aainst. Libya
three years ago by the European
Community. Last March, Tinde-
mans had gone to Syria but failed to
secure Cools' freedom.
Urbain flew to Damascus, Syria,
today after being telephoned in
Brussels by the Libyans and then
went to Lebanon to meet Cools, a
Foreign Trade Ministry spokesman
said in Tripoli, Libya.
REUTER
Cools, center, hugs a friend after his release as Belgian official wipes tears.
In an interview today in the daily
La Libre Belgique, Tindemans said
Urbain went to Libya "without any
mandate by the Belgian govern-
ment on the question of hostages
and without consulting me."
Reporters who saw Cools said he
appeared fresh and well-fed when
he arrived to a tearful reunion with
friends and an emotional embrace
with the trade minister. Cools' par-
ents flew to Damascus to meet him.
A spokesman for Urbain said that
in Tripoli, Gadhafi had expressed
wishes for boosting trade links with
Belgium and had pledged to consid-
er the issue of Belgian hostages
held in the Middle East, Reuter re-
ported from Brussels.
The spokesman added that Ur-
bain promised to unfreeze Belgian
contracts in Libya worth $60 mil-
lion that had been delayed for "tech-
nical reasons."
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