Lebanese hold man

Press, 7 June 1983, Page 1

Lebanese hold man

NZPA Beirut The Lebanon police said last evening that they had arrested a man they believe to have shot the Libyan Charge d’Affaires, Mr Ab-del-Kader Ghoqa, in a Beirut hotel, State and priv-ately-owned radio stations reported. The broadcasts quoted an unnamed police spokesman as saying the suspect was being interrogated in “utmost secrecy,” but declined to reveal his identity or the motive behind the assassination attempt. Employees at the hotel where Mr Ghoqa was shot yesterday morning (N.Z. time) had testified that the gunman spoke Arabic with

a Lebanese accent, according jto the reports. The State-run radio said that Mr Ghoqa was moved to the intensive care unit of the American University Hospital after six hours of surgery to remove several bullets from his body. He was listed to be in critical condition, according to the radio. Onlookers said that Mr Ghoqa had walked into the Napoleon Hotel just off Hamra Street and was picking up his room key when a well-dressed young man fired eight shots at him. Only two of the bullets missed. The gunman then ran into Hamra Street and got away.

Relations between Lebanon and Libya have been at a low ebb since President Amin Gemayel’s Government signed a United States-backed troop withdrawal agreement with Israel. A receptionist at the Napoleon, a small, unfashionable hotel, said that Mr Ghoqa had been living there for at least 18 months. “He came in about 11 p.m. (10 a.m. N.Z. time) to pick up his key, room 265,” he said. “A young man, well-dressed in a suit, followed him in from the street, walked up to the desk and fired eight 7mm automatic pistol shots at him from point-blank range?