Tape Released of 2 French Sisters Held Hostage in Lebanon
PARIS — A videocassette showing two young French girls held hostage in Lebanon was released Friday by a mediator, who said they should be back home by the end of the month.
Lucien Bitterlin, president of the Franco-Arab Solidarity Assn., returned to Paris on Thursday after trips to Lebanon and Libya. He brought with him the videocassette and still photographs of four-year-old Marie-Laure Valente and her six-year-old sister Virginie, taken on Christmas Eve.
He said the two girls, taken hostage Nov. 8 with six other French and Belgian citizens, were being well treated. The film showed them reading a prepared text announcing they were in good health.
The girls’ father, Pascal Betille, broke down on French television when he saw the film of his two daughters.
Bitterlin said he had met representatives of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, who have said they are holding the eight people, and that they had promised to return the two girls to their father in an unidentified Arab capital.
The sisters’ mother has given birth to a baby girl in captivity.
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