Ex-Lebanon hostage dies:

America

Sutherland

Thomas Sutherland, a teacher was held captive in Lebanon for more than six years until he was freed in 1991 and returned home to become professor emeritus at Colorado State University, has died.

Sutherland died in Fort Collins on Friday at the age of 85, according to Colorado State University.

Sutherland was one of a number of Americans in Lebanon — including Associated Press bureau chief Terry Anderson — who were kidnapped by terrorist groups in the 1980s.

Sutherland was dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Science at American University in Beirut when he was taken hostage by Islamic terrorists in 1985.

“I spent six years out of the seven years I was in captivity with Tommy,” Anderson told The Associated Press on Saturday. “We were kept in the same cells and sometimes on the same chain. Whenever they moved us, generally Tommy would show up with me. He was a kind and gentle man.”

Sutherland taught him French when they were hostages, Anderson said. “He spoke beautiful French. We practiced irregular verbs,” he said.

Anderson said Sutherland “was a guy who remembered everyone he ever met. He never forgot anyone. I don’t know how he did it. He was such a people person that he remembered everybody. When we were in prison, we would sit and talk about things we had done and places he had gone. He always talked about the people he met there, and he remembered them. He was a very, very good man.” (AP)