The World - News from Dec. 13, 1988

The captors of U.S. Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, 43, kidnaped 10 months ago while heading a U.N. observer group in Lebanon, said they have “issued (an) irrevocable sentence to execute this American spy.” The typewritten Arabic statement, signed by the pro-Iranian Organization of the Oppressed on Earth and turned over to the Beirut newspaper An Nahar, said: “It has been proven by clear-cut evidence that he and his American team of observers are guilty of providing the Zionist enemy with accurate and detailed military and security information about our resistance fighters. . . . The spy has been turned over to those responsible for executing this just and revolutionary verdict.” In Washington, the State Department denounced the kidnapers for their “grotesque” statement.