ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 4, 1997 TAG: 9703040089
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
Castro offers asylum to Peru rebels
HAVANA - President Fidel Castro, saying he was fulfilling a ``moral duty,'' offered asylum Monday to Peruvian guerrillas holding 72 hostages in Lima.
Castro's offer came after Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori made a surprise visit to Cuba, seeking Castro's help in ending the hostage crisis, in which rebels have been holding 72 top Peruvian officials since December.
``This is a moral duty, not a position taken merely for advantages,'' Castro told reporters after seeing off Fujimori, who returned to Lima late Monday.
Earlier Monday, the Tupac Amaru guerrillas' spokesman in Europe, Isaac Velasco, rejected the suggestion of exile.
- Associated Press
Saddam tries suing French magazine
PARIS - Saddam Hussein has sued a French magazine for defamation for calling the Iraqi president an ``executioner'' and a ``monster,'' among other things.
The September article in Le Nouvel Observateur, ``The Unbearable Likeness of an Executioner,'' also called Saddam a ``perfect cretin'' and ``murderer.''
At a hearing Monday, the defense argued that the court should throw out the case. Lawyer Sylvie Couturon said the Iraqi strongman was wrong in filing the defamation suit as if he were a common citizen.
Saddam's lawyer, Patrick Brunot, argued his client could only file as a common citizen and not as a head of state, because Paris and Baghdad cut diplomatic relations in February 1991, during the Gulf War.
Judge Martine Ract-Madoux took the motion under advisement and planned to announce April 1 whether the trial may proceed.
- Associated Press
Ferdinand Marcos' body taken off ice
MANILA, Philippines - A power company said it cut off electricity Monday to the refrigerated crypt of President Ferdinand Marcos because his widow, Imelda, owes more than $215,000 in overdue bills.
Marcos said she does not have enough money to pay the bills and called the action ``the harassment of the dead.''
The company says it tried for a year to collect the unpaid bills.
Marcos died in Hawaii in 1989. His body was allowed home in 1992 and was placed in a glass case in a temporary mausoleum at his ancestral home in Ilocos Norte province. The government has refused to allow the body to be brought to Manila for burial.
Cutting power to the crypt will not immediately endanger Marcos' embalmed remains, which should remain in good condition until 2002, said Frank Malabed, the mortician who treated Marcos' body.
- Associated Press
LENGTH: Medium: 58 linesby CNB