ALGIERS: US advocate and escapee Dr Timothy Leary left here on Saturday [Oct 24] by plane for the Middle East at the invitation of the Al-Fatah Palestinian guerilla movement, authoritative sources said. His actual destination was not immediately known, but the informants said the invitation to Leary came in the name of Al-Fatah leader Yasser Arafat.

They said Mr Leary left accompanied by his wife Rosemary and Miss Jenifer Dohrn, sister of Bernadine Rae Dohrn, the Weatherman student leader on the FBI list of 10 most wanted fugitives. Miss Jenifer has been associated with the Youth International Party in the United States. They said that Black Panther “Information Minister” Eldridge Cleaver and all the small Panther groups in Algiers went to the airport to bid farewell to the party.

Leary, who escaped from a 10- to-15 years jail term on narcotics charges when he got out of prison in Luis Obispo, California, last month, turned up here with his wife a week ago. The official Algerian news agency first said he had been granted political asylum, but officials now state that he was only in Algiers “in transit”. — Agency

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2020