AMAL SAYS HOSTAGES HAVING FUN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807580053-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 53
• Publication Date: June 25, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807580053-9
l` J
Ioe
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
25 June 1985
AMAL SAYS HOSTAGES "HAVING FUN"
BY JOHN PHILLIPS
BEIRUT, LEBANON
The American hostages in Beirut are swimming at the beach, watching cowboy
movies, eating well and ''having fun,'' a Shiite Moslem militia official said.
"I am sure when you meet them later on, after they are released, every one
of them will have gained 2 or 4 pounds in weight,'' Akef Haidar, a top
lieutenant in the leadership of the Amal militia, told reporters Monday.
" Amal is looking after them, giving them radio, television and films, cowboy
films especially,'' Haidar said.
'They get very fine and wonderful Lebanese food, not T-bone steaks. They are
having a very, very rich experience. They are eating from the best restaurants
in Lebanon.
''They are having fun,'' said Haidar.
'They went to the beach, they have television, radio, newspapers and have a
lot of discussion with our brothers,'' he said.
Haidar said 31 of the 40 Americans taken hostage June 14 by the hijackers of
a TWA jetliner were being held in Beirut by Amal, Lebanon's largest Moslem
militia.
Six others are in the custody of the original hijackers, believed to be
members of Hezbollah, a pro-Iranian group of Moslem extremists. The three-man
crew of the TWA Boeing 727 is under the control of Amal and the hijackers at
Beirut International Airport, he said.
Haidar said the hostages also were being shown films of villages bombarded by
the battleship USS New Jersey in 1983 and of a car-bombing that killed at least
85 people in the Beirut suburb of Bir Abed earlier this year.
Lebanese Moslems claim the CIA helped train _the__pepple responsible for the
attack in Bir Abed. but the CIA denied it.
In Athens Monday, a Greek-American businessman said he was traveling to
Beirut to offer himself in exchange for one of the hostages.
Petros Bratakos, a 44-year-old retired computer executive who operates a
restaurant in St. Louis, Mo., said he wanted to exchange himself for Arthur
Toga, a St. Louis resident, whose wife is pregnant. Bratakos said he had never
met Toga.
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807580053-9