WORLD : Friends Note Hostage’s 5th Year

BEIRUT — Students and colleagues of American educator Thomas Sutherland gathered at the American University of Beirut today to mark a grim milestone--the passing of Sutherland’s fifth year as a hostage in Lebanon.

Sutherland begins his sixth year in captivity Saturday. In the time since he was captured June 9, 1985, the only word on his welfare has come from former hostages who were held with him.

The pro-Iranian group that holds him, Islamic Jihad, has never issued a photograph of Sutherland as it has of its other captives.

“The four things that mean the most to Tom . . . are his home, his family, his work and his friends, and he found all four of those here in Beirut and at AUB,” Sutherland’s wife, Jean, told the gathering at the lecture hall in the university’s agriculture facility.