The World - News from Jan. 25, 1988

The wives of four foreign university professors held hostage in Lebanon urged the release of their husbands on the first anniversary of the kidnaping. “We ask all the people to help us in freeing our husbands in the name of humanity,” Feryal Polhill told a news conference at Beirut University College, where her husband, Robert, taught. Responsibility for the abductions of Polhill of New York City, Alann Steen of Boston, Jesse Turner of Boise, Ida., and Mithileshwar Singh, an Indian national from the United States, was claimed by the Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine. The kidnapers demanded the release of 400 Arab prisoners from Israel. Israel has rejected the trade.