Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 24, 1990 TAG: 9004240636
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WIESBADEN, WEST GERMANY LENGTH: Medium
Some details of Polhill's captivity emerged as a special team of U.S. investigators began questioning him about what he knows of other captives in Lebanon and the Shiite Moslem militants who hold them.
The 55-year-old business professor was reunited with his two sons today for the first time in more than three years. They shared a lunch of spare ribs, serenaded by a German accordionist, the officials said.
Polhill, a New Yorker, has been staying in a VIP suite at the U.S. Air Force Hospital in Wiesbaden with his wife, Feryal. His sons, Stephen, 26, and Brian, 23, arrived this morning from the United States.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Polhill was held in the same room with American educators Jesse Turner, 42, of Boise, Idaho, and Alann Steen, 51, a Boston native. All three were seized on Jan. 24, 1987, from the campus of the American University in Beirut, where they had taught.
Indian-born U.S. resident Mitheleshwar Singh, who was also kidnapped from the campus with the three professors, shared the room until his release on Oct. 3, 1988, the officials said.
"There's a possibility he [Polhill] was held in the same building with other hostages," one U.S. official said. "We're fairly certain of that."
The official said he did not know which of the 17 Westerners still in captivity might have also been held in the building. Seven Americans are among those held.
"We know from various sources where the hostages have been held," the U.S. official said, explaining that they were moved regularly.
Elsewhere, there were indications that a second hostage might soon be freed, although U.S. officials said they had "no information" on that.
And a London newspaper, The Independent, reported that several dozen Shiite prisoners held in southern Lebanon by an Israeli-backed militia would be released in the next few days as part of a deal that won Polhill's release. Sources close to the militia said Monday that its leader would decide today whether to free some of the group's estimated 300 prisoners to mark the end of the Islamic Ramadan fast.
"According to the latest information that we have received from Lebanon, maybe after a few days another hostage will be released," Iran's foreign minister, Ali Akbar Velayati, told CNN in an interview Monday.
He did not specify the nationality of the hostage who might be released.
Hussein Musawi, a leading pro-Iranian Shiite Moslem cleric in Lebanon, also said another of the 17 remaining Western hostages might be freed soon. Musawi is thought to have influence over the group that held Polhill.
"The possibility of another release is in the cards, but I don't know when, how or for what," he told the Communist-run Voice of the People radio in Lebanon.
"Such a step [Polhill's release] has to have a reciprocation. It is not feasible that all releases would be made as goodwill gestures," Musawi said.
Tehran state radio in Iran said Polhill's release might be a prelude to the release of other hostages but that Washington and other Western governments "must show goodwill."
At the base hospital, doctors said Polhill appeared to be in good shape for a man who had been in captivity for more than three years, but he was malnourished, mildly dehydrated and quite tired.
by CNB