A mysterious group that claims to be holding Sgt. Avi Sasportas captive made a series of demands Wednesday in exchange for his freedom.
Gaza lawyer Fayez Abu-Rahme said they were relayed to him by an anonymous telephone caller, who said the lawyer had been selected, along with the ambassadors of Egypt and France, to act as intermediaries for the release of the Israeli paratroop medic.
Sasportas, who disappeared Feb. 16, is the object of a massive search across southern Israel, now in its second week.
The Egyptian Embassy here and U.N. head-quarters in Jerusalem denied earlier that they had been contacted by the soldier’s alleged abductors.
The two missions were called by Israel Radio after the French news agency, Agence France-Presse, received its second anonymous phone call this week from a spokesman for the Palestine Arab Army, a group unknown to the Israeli authorities.
The telephone caller told the AFP that a videotape of the soldier had been sent “to the United Nations,” and the terms demanded for his release to the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv.
The Egyptians and the United Nations denied receiving anything.
Abu-Rahme’s caller said the video cassette was put in the hands of “two well-known international personalties,” whom he refused to identify.
The caller said the tape would be released if Israel released film of the commando attack on Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters in Tunis last year, in which the PLO’s No. 2 man, Abu Jihad, was gunned down by assassins.
SAID TO BE SICK WITH FLU
Abu-Rahme said he was told the video cassette contains messages from Sasportas to his family, his unit commander and the Israeli government.
The lawyer, who is chairman of the Gaza Bar Association and a moderate supporter of the PLO, said his caller made three demands.
They are the release of 310 Palestinians arrested before the intifada began 14 months ago; the release of all Palestinians detained since the uprising began; and payment of compensation to the families of Palestinians killed or wounded in the uprising.
The first of the anonymous calls was received by the AFP Monday. It announced only that Sasportas was held by the Palestine Arab Army “in the occupied territories” and promised that a videotape of him and demands for his release would be forthcoming within 48 hours.
According to AFP, Wednesday’s caller was the same man. The news agency said he spoke Hebrew with an Arabic accent.
The caller said Sasportas had been running a high fever from the flu and was treated by a doctor. AFP said the call sounded as if it originated inside Israel.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
