The German government is continuing to deny persistent reports that it has agreed to free two Arab terrorists serving prison sentences here, in exchange for the release of two German hostages held in Lebanon.
A government spokesman said Monday he had no knowledge of such a deal and that Germany would stick to its policy of not releasing convicted terrorists.
But the German news agency DPA reported that the hostages would be freed in the next few days and the terrorists would be released about a month thereafter. The deal would also involve Israel’s release of 300 Palestinian and Shi’ite prisoners held in southern Lebanon.
The captive Germans, Heinrich Struebig and Thomas Kemptner, were kidnapped May 16, 1989, in Beirut, where both worked for a relief organization.
That was a day before a Frankfurt court delivered a verdict against Mohammad Ali Hamadi for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner and the murder of an American passenger.
Hamadi, a Lebanese, was sentenced to life imprisonment for air piracy and murder. His brother, Abbas Hamadi, arrested in Germany in 1988, is also serving time for kidnapping two German businessmen who were subsequently released.
The group holding Struebig and Kemptner says they will not be released until the brothers are pardoned or, in any event, freed.
Bonn has publicly rejected the demands. But German officials have been holding talks on the subject with Syrian officials in Damascus. And the Iranian deputy foreign minister was expected to visit Bonn in the next few days.
Any deal involving the Hamadi brothers’ release would be strongly opposed by the United States, which had sought Mohammad Hamadi’s extradition after his arrest at Frankfurt airport more than two years ago.
The Germans refused because their law forbids extradition of prisoners to countries where they would face the death penalty. But Bonn promised that if found guilty, Hamadi would receive the severest punishment allowed by German law.
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