Kidnapers in Lebanon Let Briton Go : Mining Expert Nash in ‘Good Shape’ After 2 Weeks of Captivity

BEIRUT —  A British mineral expert, unshaved but otherwise in “very good shape,” was freed today by kidnapers nearly two weeks after he was abducted in Muslim West Beirut.

Geoffrey Nash, 60, was taken to the British ambassador’s residence in Christian East Beirut and was having a medical checkup before being flown to Britain, his daughter Nadia said.

“My father was in very good shape when I saw him after his release,” she said from their home in West Beirut.

“The only thing that was different in him was that he had not shaved. Otherwise he looked fine. He told me that they looked after him very well, gave him his medication and even brought him a change of underwear.”

She said her father appeared at their home shortly after midnight and said he had been released from a car nearby after “hours of driving” during which he was blindfolded.

Nash, a metallurgist working for the Lebanese government, was kidnaped in the Muslim sector of the capital March 14.

A British Foreign Office spokesman in London said Nash is “safe and well” and added, “Now we look forward to the release of the remaining hostages without further delay.”

Nash’s release came a day after a caller saying he represented the previously unknown Khaibar Brigades told a Western news agency that his group had seized two Britons and three people attached to the French Embassy during the last two weeks.

The caller said his group, after questioning the five, had decided to release the two Britons--Nash and oil executive Brian Levick--and French Embassy secretary Danielle Perez. However, nothing was heard today from Levick or Perez.

Five Americans, including Associated Press Beirut bureau chief Terry Anderson, and eight other Westerners have been kidnaped in Muslim areas of Lebanon in a little more than a year. Another mysterious group, Islamic Jihad, has claimed responsibility for most of the abductions.

Nadia Nash said her father “did not see any of the other kidnap victims. He was kept alone and he did not know who his abductors were.”

Geoffrey Nash is married to a Lebanese woman, Waddad, who had been sending letters to newspapers in Beirut pleading for his release “for my sake and the sake of his children.” She said she and her husband had lived in Lebanon for 37 years.