DEAN AT UNIVERSITY IN BEIRUT IS KIDNAPPED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100200106-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 30, 2011
• Sequence Number: 106
• Publication Date: June 11, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/08/31 :CIA-RDP91-005878000100200106-4
~RSI~'.1.~~~r~'`~RED WASHINGTON TIMES
11 June 19E5
...
Dean at university in Beirut
is kidnapped
By Donald Neff
THE NMSNINOTON TIMES
Gunmen shot out the tires and wind-
shield of the limousine transporting the
dean of agriculture at the American Uni-
versity of Beirut and kidnapped him min-
utes after he returned to that embattled
city, a university spokesman announced
yesterday.
Thomas Sutherland, 53, an American
veterinarian from Fort Collins, Colo.,
who had been at the university for the
past two years, had just returned from a
three-week science and agricultural con-
ference in the United States Sunday eve-
ning when his car was stopped a short
distance from Beirut's airport by five or
six gunmen.
Mr. Sutherland was pulled from the
car and thrown in the kidnappers: vehi-
cle, which sped away, according to wire
service reports. Eyewitnesses said he
was apparently uninjured.
In Washington, the State Department
confirmed Mr. Sutherland's abduction
but apparently had few other details.
Officials were reported having difficulty
locating his wife, Jean, also a teacher at
AUB, who had remained in the United
States.
The abduction was the eighth of an
American in Beirut in the past 15 months,
and seven of the victims remain missing.
In addition, four Frenchmen and a Briton
are also being held hostage, all presum-
ably by the shadowy Islamic Jihad ter-
rorist organization.
In another development, a French
cease-fire observer was shot in the head
and killed yesterday in the Shouf moun-
tains overlooking Beirut, said a
spokesman for the French force that
oversees cease-fires between Druze gun-
men and the Lebanese army.
The spokesman said Capt. Jean-Pierre
Feyrignac was the sixth French observer
killed since the unit came to Lebanon last
summer but declined to give details of his
death. Christian Voice of .Lebanon radio
said he was shot by a sniper.
The rash of kidnappings of Westerners
was seen as part of Islamic Jihad's
avowed aim of ridding Lebanon of all
Westerners, an effort in which it has been
largely successful. Few Westerners are
still in Beirut.
Additionally, telephone calls by per-
sons representing themselves as mem-
bers of Islamic Jihad have said the
kidnap victims were being held to effect
an exchange for the release of 17 Moslem
Shiites imprisoned in Kuwait for the
1983 bombings of the French and
American embassies there.
Islamic Jihad -the name means "holy
war" - recently sent photographs of
some of the kidnap victims and
threatened a "horrible disaster" if the
Kuwaiti prisoners were not released.
Kuwait, with U.S. concurrence, has
refused to deal with the abductors.
No group has yet taken responsibility
for Mr. Sutherland's abduction.
Mr. Sutherland, the third American'.
official of the school to be kidnapped
since November, was one of the few
Americans who had chosen to remain in
the increasing anarchy of west Beirut.
David Jacobsen, 54, director of AUB's
American University Hospital, was kid-
napped by suspected Shiite Moslem
extremists May 28 in west Beirut, and
AUB librarian Peter Kilburn, 60, disap-
peared last Dec. 3.
The other missing Americans are U.S.
Embassy official William Buckley, 56;
Presbyterian minister Benjamin Weir,
60; Catholic missionary Martin Law-
rence Jenco, 50; and Associated Press
bureau chief Terry A. Anderson, 37.
There were also fresh Palestinian
attacks on Shiite Moslem Amal militia
and army positions in Beirut. Police said
the attacks were aimed at forcing Amal
to end its bloody, three-week siege of the
two Palestinian refugee camps south of
Beirut, where early morning battles
killed two people and wounded eight,
according to police, bringing total casual-
ties since the fighting broke out May 19
to 536 dead and 2,268 wounded.
Meanwhile, in southern Lebanon, Isra-
el's proxy militia continued to hold 21
Finnish U.N. peace-keeping soldiers
incommunicado yesterday and renewed
a vow to keep them captive until Shiite
Moslem gunmen release 11 comrades.
"No one will meet ~ with them until
every one of our men are freed;' said
commanding Gen. Antoine Lahd of the
South Lebanon Army.
Negotiations spanned three conti-
nents in an effort to gain the release of
the Finnish members of the U.N. Interim
Force In Lebanon, abducted Friday by
the SLA in southern Lebanon.
Israeli officials said the Finns dis-
armed the SLA members and abandoned
them, leaving them to be captured by the
Amal. The SLA has charged that Finnish
members of the U.N. peace-keeping force
arrested 11 SLA men Friday and then
turned them over to Amal. In retaliation,
the SLA took captive 25 Finnish soldiers
returning from leave in Israel.
Israel, which has come under interna-
tional pressure to secure the release of
the Finns, has argued it has only limited
influence with the SLA but has sent army
officials to Qantara and Marjayoun.
Israel, which is completing its military
withdrawal from southern Lebanon, has
said it wants the SLA - a predominantly
Christian Lebanese militia - to take over
security operations in the areas it is
vacating. But the Shiite Moslem Amal
militia, which has fought to expel the
Israelis from Lebanon, wants to disman-
tle the SLA.
U.N. spokesman Timur Goksel said
UNIFIL was investigating the incident
but denied charges Sunday by Israeli
Defense Minister Yitrhak Rabin that the
? Finns provoked the kidnapping by help-
ing Amal capture the SLA soldiers. Finn-
ish Maj. Gen. Pertti Jokinen said the 11
SLA militiamen were deserters who had
sought help from the Finnish soldiers.
Amal leader Nabih Berri said his
terms for the release of the 11 militiamen
include freedom for hundreds of Shiite
prisoners that Israel transferred from
southern Lebanon to a military prison in
northern Israel. Mr. Berri also demanded
the SLA pull out of the key Lebanese town
of Jezzine but Mr. Rabin rejected Mr.
Berri's conditions.
This article is based in part on wire serv-
ice reports.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/08/31 :CIA-RDP91-005878000100200106-4