Libyan students and exiles in Britain have lived in fear of the death squads they are convinced were sent by Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi’s Government to track them down and kill them. Since 1980 several opponents of the Qaddafi Government have been killed and dozens of others wounded by attacks mounted in Britain and elsewhere in Western Europe.
Britain’s Ambassador to Libya today rejected a demand by the Libyan Government that diplomats in London and Tripoli leave their posts at the same time, noting Vienna Convention rules on diplomatic immunity. The Ambassador, Oliver Miles, said the British Embassy had been working “under reimposed restrictions” of movement, but ones that were “much less stringent” than those just after the shooting incident on April 17 outside the Libyan Embassy in London. Ambassador Miles said that a group of 30 Britons, mostly women and children and the Church of England vicar, were planning to leave on a British Caledonia airliner for London Thursday. A second group of 14, including the Ambassador, hope to leave Tripoli on Saturday. Mr. Miles said the terms of the Vienna Convention provide that diplomats are free to leave countries where they are based at any time.
Western intelligence sources said yesterday that Afghan guerrillas were withdrawing into the mountains from the valley stronghold in which they were hard hit Tuesday by Soviet and Afghan Government forces. The sources said the rebels were being attacked by Soviet Su-24 planes. Afghan refugee spokesmen in Pakistan ridiculed a claim made Tuesday by the Soviet-supported Government of Afghanistan that the attacking forces had scored a decisive victory in the 50- mile-long Panjshir valley, which runs northeast from a point 50 miles north of Kabul, the Afghan capital. But rebel groups in the battle zone appeared to take a different view. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Hezb-i-Islami, a fundamentalist Moslem group, instructed his forces to support the rebels of Ahmad Shah Masood, who were forced to withdraw into the mountains. Intelligence sources said this was significant because the two groups had been bickering ever since Mr. Masood concluded a truce with the Soviet-Afghan forces last year.
NATO intelligence sources estimate that the Soviet forces in Afghanistan have lost 5,000 dead in combat and from illness and 10,000 wounded since they intervened in December 1979. These losses, the sources said, are unlikely to cripple the total manpower of 1,800,000 in the Soviet Army and are lower than the United States Army suffered in a comparable period in Vietnam. Soviet losses from illness, the sources said, have fallen in the last 18 months because higher standards of sanitation have been adopted and base hospitals have been established.
The operation in the Panjshir valley was intended to clear the area of 10,000 guerrillas who used to attack convoys on the supply route from the Soviet border town of Termez and, occasionally, raided the Bagram air base used by Soviet transport planes and helicopters. Western intelligence sources said they thought the Soviet forces now faced the problem of maintaining the momentum of the Panjshir operation. The informants said this could mean the diversion of other units of the 108,000-man Soviet force in Afghanistan for other operations. At present the Soviet commanders are said to deploy no more than 20,000 soldiers and airmen against the guerrillas while the remainder of the force carries out exercises.
A report that Iran is preparing to build a nuclear bomb was disputed by State Department spokesman Alan Romberg, who said there is no evidence that the regime of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini has violated a nuclear nonproliferation treaty. Jane’s Defense Weekly, a London publication on weapons systems, reported Tuesday that Iran could have a nuclear bomb within two years. It said that West German experts are helping to complete an Iranian nuclear plant from which spent fuel could be extracted for bombs. However, a company spokesman in West Germany said his firm is only studying whether to complete the plant.
Iraq joined the Soviet Union in condemning U.S. policies in the Middle East, underlining a revival of close relations between the two countries. Taha Yassin Ramadan, Iraq’s first deputy prime minister, and Soviet Premier Nikolai A. Tikhonov declared after Moscow talks that Washington’s “adventurist policy” in the Middle East is the source of continuing tension there, the official Soviet news agency Tass reported. Western diplomats in Moscow said Ramadan’s visit appears to mark a resumption of warm political relations between Baghdad and Moscow after a long period of strain.
With bullets still flying in Beirut, President Amin Gemayel met with pro-Syrian Muslim leader Rashid Karami, apparently in a prelude to naming him the leader of a Lebanese government of national unity. Beirut radio quoted government sources as saying that the appointment of Karami as prime minister is expected today. “We have had enough of destruction, chaos, and killing,” Karami, 62, said after his meeting with Gemayel.
President Reagan is welcomed to Guam by the Governor and President of Guam with about 10,000 people in attendance. The President and First Lady stay in the Admiral Nimitz House.
President Reagan will be honored by a 21-gun salute as part of a lavish welcome when he arrives in Peking today for a six-day visit to China. Diplomats in Peking said the preparations made by the Chinese for receiving Mr. Reagan, among them the unusual honor of letting him deliver a televised speech in the Great Hall of the People, were the most extensive for any visiting chief of government.
Czechoslovakia protested to the United States over an alleged intrusion of a U.S. Army helicopter into Czech airspace last Friday, the official Ceteka news agency said. The U.S. Embassy counselor in Prague, Robert Farrand, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry and handed a formal protest note, the agency said. The U.S. military has said that a Cobra helicopter was fired on as it was patrolling along the Czech-West German border. West German police said they were investigating accounts that the copter crossed the border.
The anti-Communist underground in Vietnam has killed a Soviet officer in the Cam Ranh Bay area, a clandestine resistance radio broadcast asserted today. The broadcast said the killing took place March 28 near the naval base the United States built in southern Vietnam. It is used by Vietnam and the Soviet Union. The name and rank of the Soviet officer were not given in the broadcast, which was monitored here. The report could not be independently verified. The shortwave radio station, which is believed to broadcast from the region where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia meet, came on the air in late February.
The lower house of Parliament approved a security law today that allows the Indian Government to detain suspected extremists in the north Indian state of Punjab for up to two years without trial. The news agency Press Trust of India reported that the law was approved as violence continued in Punjab. Extremists threw a bomb at a group of schoolchildren, although it did not go off, and five Hindus were wounded in separate incidents with Sikhs. The act came into force by presidential decree on April 5 to give security forces greater powers to curb sectarian killings in the area. The act requires approval by both houses of Parliament.
Officials in Malaysia said farewell today to King Ahmad Shah, Sultan of Pahang, at the end of his five-year reign and prepared for a new constitutional monarch. Sultan Mahmood Iskandar of Johore, 52 years old, will take the oath on Thursday as the country’s eighth King. Under Malaysia’s rotating monarchy, the nine traditional Sultans elect one of their number to rule as king for five years. Sultan Ahmad Shah, 54, a popular king who enjoyed sports and travel, held a farewell meeting today with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, other top Government leaders and the diplomatic corps. In the last year of King Ahmad Shah’s reign, the Sultans fought the elected Government in a constitutional struggle that ended with the King gaining the power to delay legislation he disapproves for up to 60 days.
Nicaragua urged the World Court to issue a restraining order to stop the United States from offering direct or indirect support for military activities against the Sandinista Government.
CIA Director William J. Casey acknowledged that his agency could have done a better job of keeping Congress informed about the secret mining of Nicaragua’s harbors, Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) of the Senate Intelligence Committee said after Casey met with several members of the panel. Casey told them he realized that “one could with some justification” criticize the CIA for not following the letter of the law, Inouye said. The committee is to hold a closed hearing today on the CIA’s operations in support of rebels fighting Nicaragua’s leftist government.
Costa Rican security guards raided the headquarters office of Eden Pastora’s Nicaraguan rebel group. arresting 12 people and seizing a number of weapons, security chief Carlos Monge said. He said that centers of insurgents operating out of Costa Rica were searched on government orders, and among those arrested were Adolfo Chamorro and Karol Prada, Pastora’s right-hand men. Monge said most of the detained have since been released.
The Socialist International condemned white-ruled South Africa for what it called economic sabotage and military action against its black neighbors and “attempts to destabilize the region.” In a conference in Copenhagen, the 150 Socialist delegates from 40 nations accepted a Danish delegate’s report saying that little progress has been made in the past decade to bring about changes in the South African regime.
Angola and South Africa agreed today on a prisoner exchange and removed some obstacles delaying South Africa’s troop withdrawal from Angola, Foreign Minister R. F. Botha said. Returning from a meeting with Angolan representatives in Lusaka, Zambia, Mr. Botha also indicated that the talks focused on the issue of independence for South-West Africa. Angolan-based guerrillas have been fighting a 17-year-old war to end South African control of the territory, also called Namibia, which lies between Angola and South Africa. Mr. Botha declined to discuss details of the talks, but said the prisoner exchange involved a South African, a Cuban and some Angolan soldiers. He also hinted that the two sides discussed the presence of an estimated 25,000 Cuban troops in Angola.
The USSR performs a nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan.
Walter F. Mondale, disturbed about accusations by Gary Hart that the Mondale campaign was accepting funds from organized labor that may be illegal, announced he had ordered the disbanding of all independent delegate committees. Mr. Mondale also said he had asked Lane Kirkland, president of the AFL-CIO, to halt the disbursement of funds from labor political action committees to the delegate groups.
Gary Hart urged Walter F. Mondale to return to the labor political action committees about $250,000 they have donated to the Mondale delegate committees. Senator Hart assailed the labor unions’ political action committees as “PAC-Man” politics that, much like the children’s video game, “gobble up the integrity” of those who govern.
More than 70 delegate committees sprang up across the country to aid the Presidential campaign of Walter F. Mondale in the last month as his campaign approached Federal spending limits. The committees grew to 127.
The Democratic Presidential race is likely to be over in two weeks, according to an emerging consensus of party officials and strategists. Some of Gary Hart’s top advisers are urging him to undertake a “two-week strategy” that calls on him to make one last, furious charge at Walter F. Mondale in the fortnight’s primaries and caucuses, attacking Mr. Mondale as the candidate of special-interest money and outdated ideas.
David A. Kennedy was found dead in his room in a Palm Beach, Florida, hotel. The 28-year-old Mr. Kennedy led a deeply troubled life after the assassination of his father, Robert F. Kennedy, in 1968. The young man had suffered heroin and alcohol addiction in the past. The cause of death will not be made public until laboratory tests are completed in four to eight days. The police said there were “no signs of foul play.”
The most complex protein ever created artificially in the laboratory has been produced, according to scientists in San Francisco. The substance is vital to the normal clotting of blood. The achievement is considered a major step toward artificial commercial production of the human blood substance that is crucial to the lives of hemophiliacs.
In a key labor law ruling, the Supreme Court restricted the activities on which unions may spend agency fees paid by workers who choose not to join a union. The Justices ruled that nonmember fees cannot be spent for union organizing or for union litigation that is not connected with the bargaining unit.
A divorced woman cannot be denied custody of her children because of her remarriage to a man of another race, under a unanimous ruling by the Supreme Court. The Justices overturned the order of a Florida court removing a white child from her mother’s custody and awarding custody to the father after the mother married a black man.
Arguing that the mentally retarded have no federal right to training that would develop their capacities to the fullest extent possible, the Reagan Administration asked an appeals court to overturn a ruling involving the Pennhurst State School and Hospital in Pennsylvania. A U.S. District Court ruled that Pennhurst inmates have a federal right to “a reasonable opportunity to acquire and maintain those life skills necessary to cope as effectively as their capacities permit.” The Administration argued that the mentally retarded have a federal right only to physical safety in state institutions.
The Senate rejected an effort to cut federal deficits by slashing most areas of spending by 10%. An amendment by Senator Jesse Helms (R-North Carolina), which failed 27 to 68, would have spared the defense budget, Social Security and Medicare. During the budget year that begins next October 1, all other major types of spending — but not necessarily all programs — would have been cut 10% below current levels. It would have reduced the deficit by about $204 billion over three years.
The Environmental Protection Agency for the first time expressed support for a measure that would permit states to pay to clean up toxic waste dumps and receive federal reimbursement later. In a parallel development, Rep. James J. Florio (D-New Jersey), said he expects an agreement in a few days among House leaders on a new “superfund” reauthorization bill. The stirrings in the House and Senate came amid congressional efforts to renew the $1.6-billion superfund chemical waste cleanup program, which expires on September 30, 1985.
The Justice Department said it will drop its civil action against Glen Cove, New York, in light of the city’s decision to permit Soviet diplomats living in their residence there to use the community’s public recreational facilities. A department spokesman said the city council voted to repeal a ban forbidding Soviet diplomats who live in the New York City suburb to use beach and other facilities that other residents use free. The city revoked the Soviets’ recreational permits in April, 1982, ostensibly because of alleged espionage activity. In court papers, however, the federal government said that discussions with the former mayor established that the permits actually were revoked with the aim of collecting a user fee.
Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. of Providence, Rhode Island, resigned after being given a five-year suspended sentence Monday for assaulting a former friend he believed was having an affair with his estranged wife. Under the City Charter, the 42-year-old Cianci could not continue to hold the office because of his status as a convicted felon. The charter apparently does not block him from seeking the post again in a July 17 special election. After quitting. Cianci was greeted by supporters cheering his nickname, “We want Buddy,” and “You’ll be back.”
A Pennsylvania businessman who earned more than $580,000 by dumping toxic wastes has been convicted of racketeering in a case that prosecutors called a landmark for enforcement. State Attorney General LeRoy Zimmerman said the conviction of William A. Lavelle 3rd of Scranton on Tuesday was the nation’s first successful prosecution of a toxic-waste dumper on racketeering charges. Judge Edwin Kosik of Lackawanna County found Mr. Lavelle, 53 years old, guilty of two counts of violating the state’s anti-racketeering law. Judge Kosik also convicted two concerns owned by Mr. Lavelle, W. A. Lavelle & Son Co. and Lavco Inc., on one count each of racketeering in connection with the laundering of profits from illegal dumping. No toxic waste charges were filed because the statute of limitations for such charges had expired. Mr. Lavelle could be sentenced for up to 40 years in prison and $50,000 in fines, and each of his companies also could be fined $25,000.
Three Colombian citizens were given life sentences in White Plains, New York, for kidnapping an 11-year-old boy and holding him for a ransom of $3 million in cocaine. Enrique Osorno, 42, of Queens; Jose Perez, 46, of Miami, and Francisco Pelaez, 39, of Colombia, were sentenced to life. A fourth man, James Pedroza of Manhattan, was given a 20-year term. They were earlier convicted of kidnapping Luis Almedia from his family’s home in Alhambra, California.
The Labor Commissioner of Georgia was convicted today of conspiracy to defraud the state by having employees work on his private boats on state time. A judge in Atlanta sentenced the Commissioner, Sam Caldwell, to one year in prison, four years’ probation and a $10,000 fine. Mr. Caldwell, 56 years old, who said the conviction was based on perjured testimony, immediately appealed the conviction and said he would remain on the job. Gov. Joe Frank Harris, in a news conference after the Superior Court jury returned its verdict, called on the Commissioner, an elected official, to step down.
A San Diego County grand jury has recommended eliminating bilingual education, saying the programs are “impractical, expensive and, in a sense, un-American.” The report, presented to Judge William Low of Superior Court, urged the Board of Supervisors to seek an amendment to the United States Constitution declaring English the nation’s official language. The grand jury report was issued Tuesday after an investigation of programs in which students are taught subjects in their native languages. Jess Haro, president of the Chicano Federation, a civil rights group, said the report was “bigoted and racist.”
Jesse Barfield has 2 doubles and a homer to drive in 4 runs as Toronto stops Oakland, 11–0. Barfield also scores 3 runs as does Damaso Garcia, who adds 4 stolen bases. Luis Leal (3-0) allows 5 hits in the win.
In a 2–1 victory over Montreal at Olympic Stadium, Mets right-hander Dwight Gooden becomes the first teenager to strike out ten batters in a major league game since Bert Blyleven accomplished the feat with the Twins in 1970. The 19-year-old rookie will lead the National League with 276 strikeouts this season.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1163.53 (+0.63).
Born:
Robert Andino, Cuban-American MLB second baseman, shortstop, and third baseman (Florida-Miami Marlins, Baltimore Orioles, Seattle Mariners), in Miami, Florida.
Derrick Byars, NBA power forward (San Antonio Spurs), in Memphis, Tennessee.
Died:
Richard Benedict, 64, actor (“Okinawa”), of a heart attack.
History Diaries 