No news of Sallustro

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32879, 30 March 1972, Page 11

No news of Sallustro

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) BUENOS AIRES, Mar. 29.

The fate of the kidnapped Fiat Motor Company executive, Mr Oberdan Sallustro, was unknown today, three hours after the deadline set for his execution by his Marxist guerrilla captors. There has been no fresh word from the People’s Revolutionary Army, which abducted him on Tuesday of last week.

A report that a body had been found in the suburb of San Isidro, near Mr Sallustro’s home, sent police cars and reporters to the area, but, a police spokesman said, “it was just a sleeping drunk.” He added: “I guess we’ll get dozens of these reports in the next few hours.”

Thirty minutes before the deadline expired, Mr Sallustro’s wife, Ida, appeared before the television cameras massed outside her home and, almost choking with tears, pleaded with his ' captors: “Save him, save him, spare his life.”

The prospects of the release of Mr Sallustro have been complicated by a report that the guerrillas have, in effect, trebled their ransom demand for $NZ899,630 worth of pencils and other supplies for schoolchildren. The kidnappers had earlier implied that they had dropped another of their original demands—the release of 50 imprisoned guerrillas—because of the Argentine milltary Government’s hard-line policy. Underground test The United States Atomic Energy Commission says that the Soviet Union apparently held an underground nuclear test explosion yesterday. The blast, at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test area, had a force of between 20 and 200 kilotons (equivalent to between 20,000 and 200,000 tons of T.N.T.). — Washington, March 29.