'Hamadi brother behind abduction’

Press, 29 January 1988, Page 7

'Hamadi brother behind abduction’

NZPA-Reuter Beirut The brother of two Shi’ite Muslim Lebanese detained in West Germany was behind the kidnapping of a West German, Ralph Schray, in Muslim West Beirut yesterday, a member of Schray’s family said.

The relative, who asked not to be identified, said a senior Muslim Shi’ite official told him that Abdel Hadi Hamadi ordered the abduction to put pressure on Bonn to free his younger brothers Mohamed Ali and Abbas Ali. He quoted the Shi’ite militia official as saying: “We received information a month ago that they were looking for a German to kidnap but found none. Finally it seems they seized someone whose origin is German.” In Bonn, the Government said it had not been able to verify the Beirut police kidnap report separately, but confirmed that a West German passport had been issued by Bonn's embassy in Lebanon in the name of Ralph Schray. "Nothing is known about the background of the abduction,” a Government statement said. It said the Chancellery Minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, head of the Bonn crisis staff dealing with the Beirut kidnappings, had called the group to a meeting today. “The Government reiterates its most urgent

warning to West German nationals against travel in Lebanon,” the statement said.

Schray, aged 30, near his home in the commercial Bristol district of Beirut just a few blocks from a Syrian Army checkpoint. A shop owner near the scene said a policeman rushed to help Mr Schray, but was held at bay by one of the abductors who stuck a rifle muzzle in his stomach. “We are from the Syrian security forces. Go away,” the witness quoted the gunman as saying. At least one of the gunmen was wearing a Lebanese police military uniform, the witness said. Mr Schray’s Lebanese wife of five months, Rana, told Reuters that her husband’s mother was a Lebanese Palestinian and his father was West German. He had lived all his life in Lebanon and spoke only a few words of German, she said. “He was born here. He belongs here. Despite the wave of abductions of foreigners, he never felt scared because he did not identify himself as a German. He is more Lebanese than the Lebanese,” she said. She said he worked as an engineer for a company called Issaco.

On Tuesday, Mr Schaeuble told the Duesseldorf court trying Abbas Ali Hamadi on kidnapping charges that threats to harm two West Germans abducted in Beirut after Mohamed Ali’s arrest had forced Bonn to turn down a United States request for his extradition. Abbas Ali is charged with seizing the two last January in an attempt to prevent the extradition. Mohamed Ali, who was arrested in Frankfurt; was sought by the United States for the hijacking in 1985 of a United States airliner in which a United States Navy diver was killed. Abdel Hadi Hamadi is an official of the Iranianbacked Hizbollah (Party of God), which senior Muslim security sources say kidnapped two West Germans, Rudolf Cordes and Alfred Schmidt, in Lebanon a year ago. Mr Schmidt was freed in September but Mr Cordes is still in captivity. The police said about six gunmen travelling in three cars snatched Mr