Hostages seem set for six more weeks in captivity

Press, 25 February 1980, Page 9

Hostages seem set for six more weeks in captivity

NZPA-Reuter Teheran The long-awaited United Nations commission to investigate Iran's grievances against the deposed Shah arrived to start work in Teheran at the week-end, aiming for an early solution to the Teheran-Washington crisis over the United States Embassy hostages.

But prospects that its inquiry might win immediate freedom for the 49 Americans held at the occupied embassy by radicat Muslim students faded when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny effectively shelved the problem for at least a month.

The five-man United Nations panel of officials from Algeria, France, Sri Lanka, Syria, and Venezuela flew in from Geneva and said it was confident of fulfilling its factinding mission, expected to last about two weeks. Iran will seek to persuade the commission that the' former Shah committed his alleged crimes with the encouragement of the United States. Apart from documents, it is certain to confront the investigators with victims of torture and street violence. After lengthy negotiations, the United Nations Secretary - General (Dr Kurt Waldheim) set up the inquiry with Washington’s agreement in an attempt to end the 113-day old embassy occupation.

Ayatollah Khomeiny, Iran’s 79-year-old revolutionary leader, appeared however to have lowered the commission’s sights when he

announced at the weekend that he was leaving it to the future Iranian parliament to set terms for the hostages’ release. . The Parliament, whose political colour its unpredictable, will only be elected next month and will not convene until the beginning of April.

“It was up to the deputies “to make decisions about the hostages’ release and the concessions we are supposed to get in return for their release,” the Ayatollah -said in a statement from the Teheran heart hospital where he is undergoing treatment.

On the other hand, the Iranian leader appeared to break new ground by not making the hostages’ release necessarily dependent on the extradition of the Shah back to Iran, although he stressed that the nation should continue to pursue this goal. The embassy students, backed by Ayatollah Khomeiny, have been demanding the return of the Shah, at present in Panama, ever since they took over the mission on November 4. Only three days ago they dismissed as “foolish expectation” any idea that their cap-

-tives would be freed on other terms.

In a statement after the Ayatollah’s speech the students said they would gladly take orders from Parliament, if Ayatollah Khomeiny said so. The Ayatollah’s delegation of the decision to parliament was seen as another sign of his withdrawal from the hurly-burly of political life since he went into hospital a month ago. He has already handed command of the armed forces to President "Abolhassan Bani-Sadr.

Although his doctors have said there is nothing radically wrong with him, they have barred all visitors from the hospital until further noice, saying it was not advisable for him to be bothered.

Exact details of the inquiry commission’s activities including the venue for their hearings, were still not known early today. A Foreign Ministry spokesman told reporters the hearings would be held behind closed doors. The commission needed privacy to hold proper deliberations, he said.