The Foreign Ministry declined to comment Wednesday on a Beirut newspaper report that Belgium will on Thursday exchange a member of the Abu Nidal terrorist organization for a family of four Belgians held hostage by the group.
The newspaper Al Liwa said the four members of the Houtekins family would be freed after “final bargaining” between the Belgian government and the Abu Nidal group, also called the Fatah Revolutionary Council, which kidnapped them aboard a yacht in the eastern Mediterranean in November 1987.
At the time of the kidnapping, the Fatah Revolutionary Council accused the family of being agents of Mossad, the Israeli secret service.
The terrorist, Said Nasser, has been serving a life sentence since 1980 for his role in a grenade and machine-gun attack on a group of Orthodox Jewish children in Antwerp who were boarding a bus for summer camp. One of the group, 14-year-old David Kohan of France, was killed in that attack.
Belgian law permits life prisoners to be paroled after 10 years for good behavior. Nasser, now 35, became eligible for parole on July 27, but the Belgian authorities did not announce a decision to release him.
However, Foreign Minister Mark Eyskens hinted recently that the government was pressing for the simultaneous release of the hostages and Nasser.
The Belgian Jewish community has been deeply upset about the impending release. Israel has declined to get involved.
The hostages are Emmanuel Houtekins, 46; his wife, Godelieve Kets, 52; and their children Valerie, 19, and Laurent, 20.
It has been reported that they and other members of their original group have been held in the Ain Hilwe Palestinian refugee camp near the Lebanese port city Sidon.
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