Criticism mounted here today over the safe conduct granted five Arab terrorists who occupied the Saudi Arabian Embassy yesterday and were permitted to leave France this afternoon with six hostages bound and under gunpoint. Observers noted that this was the first time a Western government has permitted armed terrorists to get away with hostages. The terrorists landed at Cairo Airport tonight. The terrorists and their hostages took off from Le-Bourget Airport aboard a Syrian Caravelle jet.
The newspaper Le Monde said the decision by French authorities to give the terrorists safe conduct after they released five other hostages–four French nationals and the Iraqi Ambassador–was “highly subject to criticism.” The paper called the distinction between hostages a “juridical fiction.” The pro-government daily, “Le Figaro,” said the only solution to terrorism is the “banishment of the terrorists by the international community.”
French officials stressed that above all France wanted to avoid bloodshed. Foreign Minister Michel Jobert said he “did not believe that the incident would affect France’s Middle East policy,” Negotiations for the safe conduct were conducted by three Arab ambassadors here. They stressed that the entire matter was “a strictly inter-Arab affair” and specified that the departing hostages left voluntarily and that the terrorists promised none of them would be harmed. One of the French hostages released, Mrs. Francoise Goussault, said the terrorist leader was a 35-year-old Jordanian doctor.
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