No Sign of 2 Girls Reportedly Freed by Terrorists

There was no trace Wednesday of two French girls reportedly freed after being held by a Palestinian terrorist group for 13 months.

Walid Khaled, spokesman for Abu Nidal’s Revolutionary Council of Fatah, had said Monday that the girls, Marie-Laure Betille, 7, and her sister Virginie, 6, were on their way to Paris by plane. But they have not arrived in the French capital.

In West Beirut, an official of the Abu Nidal organization said: “Comrade Walid Khaled revealed the latest information on the two French girls (Tuesday). There is nothing new on them.”

Last Saturday, Khaled said the girls would be released within 24 hours in response to a call by Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, the group’s main financial backer. On Sunday, Khaled said the girls were to be released “outside Lebanon,” but refused to say where. On Tuesday, he announced that Abu Nidal had met the girls at one of the faction’s bases in Lebanon, said goodby and approved arrangements to send them home.

The girls were seized by Abu Nidal’s gunmen on a yacht off the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip in November, 1987. Also seized were five Belgians and the girls’ mother, Jacqueline Valente, who is separated from their father.

An informed Palestinian source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Khaled was “intentionally making conflicting statements about the girls to divert attention from the real location where they will be set free. I wouldn’t be surprised if they surface in an Arab capital in North Africa,” the source said.

The kidnapers claimed that the Europeans were seized while spying for Israel.