Cable Briefs

Press, 5 June 1979, Page 8

Cable Briefs

'Rebels in Panama’ An El Salvador Government spokesman has said that Leftist militants of the Popular Revolutionary Bloc, who left San Salvador on I Friday after occupying the I French and Venezuelan Embassies for most of last month, are in Panama where he said they have been granted political asylum. They were last seen leaving Panama on a plane, but a Salvadorean spokesman, Colonel Rafael Flores Lima, said they were still there. Since they left from Panama’s Tocumen Airport, believed to be bound for Mexico or Cuba, there has been' no trace of the rebels or! their plane. — San Salvador. Remains returned The remains of Mrs Dora Bloch. the Israeli-British grandmother murdered by Idi Amin in 1976, have arrived in Israel from Uganda.' Israel radio reports that she, will be buried in a State funeral today in Jerusalem. Mr Bertram Bloch accompanied his mother’s coffin back to Israel after her remains were turned over to him by Ugandan officials >n a ceremony on Thursday al Entebbe Airport. Mrs Blocn, aged 74, was a passenger aboard an Air France jet hijacked to Uganda in July, 1976, by pro-Palestinian terrorists. She fell ill and was taken to Kampala hospital, where Amin henchmen abducted her and murdered her on July 4, after the Ugandan 'dictator became enraged when Israeli commandos stormed Entebbe and rescued; her fellow passengers. — Jerusalem. Streep completed Tanzanian troops have reached the Sudan border m north-west Uganda without meeting resistance and finding no trace of the fugitive dictator, Idi Amin, Kampala officials have said. The force has now crossed the entire length of Uganda since entering the country west of Lake Victoria last January and toppling the Amin regime with the capture of Kampala on April 11. — Kampala. Menten in coma Dutch millionaire, Peter Menten, who collapsed last Friday when policemen told him they were arresting him again for alleged war crimes, was believed still to be in a coma, a Justice Ministry spokesman has said. Menten, aged 80. a diabetic, was taken to Utrecht University Hospital after becoming ill at his home when the police told him that a Rotterdam court had issued a warrant for his arrest. He has already been convicted once, in December, 1977, of helping to murder between 20 and 30 Poles, mostly Jews, in 1941 when he worked as an interpreter for the Nazi S.S. in eastern Poland. He was jailed for 15 years. Menten, an art collector and businessman, was released by a Hague Court last December because the Justice Ministry, for unexplained reasons, had promised him immunity from prosecution early in the 19505. The Supreme Court quashed this ruling last month and ordered a hew trial. — The Hague. Salvage hopes Experts at the Los Angeles County Museum of art have examined eight vandalised paintings to determine if the art works — including two Picassos — could be easily restored. The paintings were defaced on Friday with an unidentified object. In a preliminary examination, museum experts described the damage as “largely superficial” and said the paintings “all can be readily restored.” — Los Angeles.