Lebanese Shia Cleric Confident Hostages Are ‘Alive and Well’

BEIRUT — The nation’s highest Shia Muslim cleric said today that he was certain that all the foreign hostages held in Lebanon are “alive and well,” including Anglican church envoy Terry Waite.

“He is the most alive among them,” said Sheik Mohammed Mehdi Shamseddin, head of the Supreme Shia Council, which governs the sect’s religious affairs. He did not elaborate.

Shamseddin made the remark during an interview with the Associated Press in response to a question about a claim recently made in a West German courtroom that Waite had been killed by his captors.

Shamseddin, 53, is a moderate who commands the respect of both Iran and Syria, the most influential Middle East powers in Lebanon.

Waite, 48, vanished Jan. 20, 1987, in West Beirut while on a mission to negotiate the release of hostages. No group has claimed responsibility for his abduction.

Alain Mousa, a Lebanese interpreter at the kidnaping trial of Abbas Ali Hamadi in Dusseldorf, West Germany, told the court on Tuesday that he had obtained information that Waite had been killed. Mousa quoted a Lebanese Shia informant as telling him the kidnapers murdered Waite because they thought a heart pacer he had was an electronic device sending out signals to lead to his hide-out.

Abbas Hamadi is on trial for allegedly arranging the kidnapings of two West Germans in Lebanon last year to win the release of his brother, Mohammed Hamadi, who is jailed in Frankfurt in connection with the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner to Beirut.