GUNMEN ABDUCT AMERICAN PRIEST IN WEST BEIRUT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403410006-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: January 9, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403410006-7
-Gunmen Abduct American
Priest in West Beirut,
taken somewhere else. The Amal offi-
By JOHN KIFNER cials said his abductors fled when con-
Speetal to The New Yak Times' fronted by the militiamen.
BEIRUT, Lebanon; Jan. 8 - An The newspaper An Nahar reported
American Roman Catholic priest who this morning that Mr. Wehrli had been
beads a relief agency was kidnapped seized by members of the Atat family
by gunmen this morning. He was the
fifth American to disappear on the
of West Beirut in 10 months.
Streeo
Viffewes said about eight men bran-
:dishing automatic rifles grabbed the
-
ex-
xpriest, Lawrence Martin Jenco of Joli- i plosives strapped on him and that he
:,et, Ill., from his car as he was being was on his way to Rome to help blow up
driven to his relief offices in the mostly the' American Embassy there. Italian
Moslem and increasingly lawless west- police subsequently arrested seven
:ern sector of the Lebanese capital. young Lebanese and charged them in
Father Jenco, 50 years old, is a priest connection with the purported plot.
-of the Servite order who has worked Priest Seized In Morning
,.here about three months as director of ruing
,;the Catholic Relief Services operation Father Jenco was seized about 7:30
-in Beirut. The- relief agency has been this morning from the main Hamra
.providing aid to war refugees and other Street shopping district. Witnesses said
,victims of the decade of strife in this the gunmen blocked his car, pulled him
;'country. out and forced him into another car.
' =- I Requires Heart Medication They then beat the priest's driver,
Khaled Krounfol,' a Moslem, and
Shaken workers at the relief agen- locked him into the trunk of the priests
cy:s office refused today to speak tore- car.
i porters. Local Arabic-language radio Then they raced off in the getaway
stations and the Catholic agency's car, firing,wildly.into the air to clear
headquarters in New York said tonight the way, witnesses said.
that the priest suffered from a heart Three other. Americans aie known to
condition and required special medica- have been kidnapped, each, like Father
By nightfall, there was no indication
of his whereabouts or of the identity of
his abductors.
While Christians, led by Maronite
Catholics, form one pole of the bitter
divisions here, Catholic Relief Services
had made a point of keeping its opera-
tion in West Beirut open and of helping
Palestinian refugees after their camps
were destroyed during the Israeli inva-
NF! YOPK TIPTS OLE ?b[LV
9 January 1985
their relatives, Hussein al-Atat, in Zu-
rich last November.
The Zurich police said when he was
arrested that Hussein al
Atat had
Jenco, as he was headed for work in the
morning, and all are believed still
being held. They are Jeremy Levin, the
Middle East bureau chief of the Cable
News Network, who disappeared on
March 7, 1984; William Buckley, a
political officer of the American Em-
bassy, who was taken on March 16, and
the Rev. Benjamin Weir, an elderly
Presbyterian minister, who was seized
on May 8.
Also, Peter Kilburn, 60, a librarian at
the American University of Beirut,
who is in poor health, has not been seen
since Dec. 3 and is feared kidnapped.
Friends say his cane and medicines
were left in his apartment.
No Claims of Responsibility
No group has taken responsibility.for
kidnapping the Americans. However,
they are widely believed to have been
taken by a branch of the shadowy Is-
lamic Holy War, the Shiite Moslem ter-
rorist cells that asserted they bombed
the American Ambassy twice and the
Marine garrison here.
There has been considerable specu-
lation that the Americans are being
held as hostages to exchange for the 17
men, mostly Shiites from Iraq, con-
victed in Kuwait for truck bomb at-
tacks on the American and French Em-
bassies on Dec. 12, 1983.
Father Jenco's abduction came less
than 12 hours after a Swiss diplomat
was released after being held for four
days. The diplomat, Eric Wehrli, the
acting charge 'd'affaires, had. been
chased down by a carload of gunmen in
West Beirut. He was freed Monday
night in the offices of Nabih Berri, the
leader of the Shiite Moslem Amal mili-
tia.
Aural officials said their militiamen
had found the hideout where Mr.
Wehrli was being held and had freed
him as he was being put in a car to be
The series of attacks on Americans
and others - the president of the
American Upiversity,' Malcolm Kerr,
was slain in his office last February -
and the mounting anarchy has driven
most foreigners out of Beirut
Meanwhile, the Lebanese Govern-
ment managed, after months of argu-
ment, to send 200 paramilitary police-
men about 10 miles south of Beirut to-
day in the first stage of a long-heralded
peace effort. The mission of the police-
men of the Internal Security Forceis to
clear the way for the deployment of
troops to open the coastal highway to
Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon,
which has been blocked by feuding
Druse and' Christian militias.
Heart Ailment Adds to Concern
A spokesman at the Catholic Relief
Services's New York headquarters
said yesterday that the agency was
particularly worried about Father
Jenco because of his heart condition.
The spokesman, Beth Griffin, the
agency's Communications Coordina-
tor, said that medical tests on the
priest were taken Monday and that re-
sults became available yesterday.
A mass was concelebrated yesterday
morning at the agency's headquarters
for Father Jenco and for his abductors,
Miss Griffin said. The principal con-
celebrant was the Rev. Robert Charle-
bois, Senior Director of the Catholic
Relief Services programs in Eurasia.
Father Jenco, who was assigned to
the post in Beirut last September, had
received no specific threats before the,
kidnapping, Miss Griffin said.
She described Father Jenco as "per-
sonable, level-headed and very intelli-
gent" and said he had been chosen for
the Lebanese office because of his ex-
perience in dealing with large numbers
of displaced people in Thailand and for
his work in Yemen.
Father Jenco heads a staff of 12 that
includes another American citizen, a
nun. The Catholic agency operates re-
lief and rehabilitation projects all over
Lebanon, providing direct assistance to,
individuals and to war-damaged insti-
tutions.
Catholic Relief Services is the over-
seas aid and development agency of the
American Catholic community and
provides humanitarian assistance to
people in 70 countries.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403410006-7