The World - News from Aug. 28, 1987

Negotiations with six convicted murderers holding 21 hostages at a prison on the Italian island of Elba stalled, despite pleas from relatives of the hostages for the government to comply with the inmates’ demand for a getaway helicopter. The inmates seized the hostages Tuesday. Two Radical Party members of Parliament who spoke over the prison telephone to the inmates’ leader, Mario Tuti, a member of a right-wing terrorist group who has been jailed since 1975, quoted him as saying: “I have waited for years for this opportunity. . . . I want to be free again.” Government officials said the situation was calm in the prison.