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January 21
The Americans had been held since November 1979
1981: Tehran frees US hostages after 444 days
England have
The 52 American hostages held at the US embassy in Tehran for more than 14
months have arrived in West Germany on their way home to the United States.
The former diplomats and embassy staff stepped from the plane onto the
tarmac at Wiesbaden airport looking tired but elated after their 4,000-mile
(6,437km) flight from Iran.
Some waved to the crowd of well-wishers who had gathered, others gave the
V-for-victory sign.
Iran finally agreed to release the hostages after the US said it would
release assets frozen in American and other banks, including the Bank of
England, since the embassy was seized.
Former president Jimmy Carter, appointed as President Ronald Reagan"s
special envoy, has flown in to welcome home the embassy staff he had hoped would
be freed while he was still in charge at the White House.
Stories of the "abominable treatment" the men and women suffered at the
hands of their Iranian captors are beginning to emerge.
Letters from home were burned in front of the hostages, there were regular
beatings and some talked of games of Russian roulette.
The Americans were flown via Algiers to Wiesbaden, where they will now be
cared for at a military hospital while their conditions are assessed.
The US government has tried to dissuade families from flying out to Germany
for reunions with their loved ones until they have been confirmed fit.
Reporters were able to shout a few questions to hostages who appeared
briefly on the hospital balcony. One man said they had had no idea they were
about to be released.
The hostage ordeal began in November 1979 when a group of radical Iranian
students stormed the American embassy in Tehran. Everyone inside was taken
captive.
The students were angered by American support for the Shah, who fled into
exile in January 1979 and arrived in the United States in October for cancer
treatment. They demanded the Shah"s return to stand trial for alleged crimes in
office.
They had the backing of the Iranian government, led by Ayatollah Khomeini.
But their demands for the Shah"s extradition were foiled when he fled to
Cairo.
The students still refused to release their hostages, however, until
President Carter was defeated in the US elections. This paved the way for fresh
negotiations with the Algerians acting as intermediaries.
Lamen Khalifa Fhimah is wanted in connection with the Lockerbie bombing
1992: UN threatens Libya with sanctions
Artificially 1969:
The The United Nations has ordered Libya to surrender intelligence agents
accused of the Lockerbie and French airliner bombings.
The 15-nation Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution urging
Libya ""immediately to provide a full and effective response"" to the British
and American demand that the two men - Lamen Khalifa Fhimah and Abdel Basset Ali
al-Megrahi - be surrendered to stand trial.
The resolution also ordered Libya to co-operate with France"s investigation
into the bombing of a French-owned UTA airliner over Nigeria in 1989, in which
171 people lost their lives.
Western diplomats said that they would seek selective UN sanctions against
Libya ""in a matter of weeks"" if the two Lockerbie suspects are not handed
over.
The pair are accused of conspiring to place a bomb concealed in a radio
cassette recorder in a suitcase on board an Air Malta flight that connected to
Pan Am 103 in Frankfurt.
The bomb exploded over Lockerbie on 21 December, 1988, killing all 259
people on board and 11 on the ground.
Police in Scotland and the US originally suspected the Syrian-based Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC) of having a
role in the bombing.
But further evidence led the authorities to conclude that Libya ordered and
carried out the attack in retaliation for the downing of an Iranian airliner by
a US missile in 1988.
The resolution marks the first occasion the Security Council has told a
country to extradite any of its citizens.
It is also the first time the UN has implicitly accused a fellow member
state of being involved in state terrorism.
Despite the move, families of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing
criticised the United Nations resolution for being weak and inadequate.
"There is ample evidence that both Syria and Iran were involved," said
Daniel Cohen whose 20-year-old daughter, Theodora, died in the crash.
"But, because of political reasons the United States and Great Britain have
drawn the Pan Am 103 case very narrowly, accusing only two Libyans."
A senior Libyan official said that Tripoli had no intention of extraditing
the men.
Jadualah Azuz Talhi, a former foreign minister who led a Libyan delegation,
told the security council that the suspects were innocent until proven
guilty.
Vocabulary:
strangle: to kill by squeezing the throat of so as to cut off the
air(扼死) |
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发表于 2016-7-9 23:20:10