Doctors say Marine is healthy but tired

LANDSTUHL, Germany -- A Marine whose mysterious disappearance in Iraq was followed by claims he had been kidnapped and beheaded is exhausted but healthy and has yet to tell his story, doctors at a US military hospital in Germany said yesterday.

Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun, who showed up Thursday at the US Embassy in Beirut nearly three weeks after he vanished, was flown from the Lebanese capital to Ramstein Air Base earlier yesterday. He was immediately whisked to the nearby Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, where Navy doctor Commander Peter Marco examined him.

"I found him in excellent physical condition," Marco told reporters at Landstuhl, though he said Hassoun lost about 20 pounds during his absence. "There are no physical bruises on his body."

Lieutenant Colonel Sally Harvey, a clinical psychologist who met Hassoun in Lebanon and traveled with him to Germany, said Hassoun had yet to tell doctors what happened to him but would probably start doing so today.

"He has been sleeping only two to three hours a night for the past three weeks," although it was not yet clear why, Harvey said.

Hassoun took a sleeping pill after arriving at Landstuhl, doctors said. "He is so exhausted, it's pretty hard to see where he is," Harvey added. "His spirits are good -- he's glad to be back."

Hassoun is a Lebanese-born Muslim who was working in Iraq as an Arabic translator. He is expected to stay at Landstuhl for a few days before going to Camp Lejeune, N.C., said Major Tim Keefe, a spokesman for the Marine Corps in Germany.

While Hassoun was missing, conflicting reports emerged about his fate, first that he was kidnapped, then that he was beheaded, then that he was alive. On June 27, Arab television aired a videotape purportedly from Islamic militants showing him blindfolded with a sword held above his head.

There was speculation that he might have deserted his base and been headed to Lebanon when he was abducted. The Navy was investigating whether the kidnapping story was part of a hoax.

Before he boarded the jet in Beirut, Hassoun embraced some people and shook hands with others. His mother, Halimeh, and wife, Rana, were at the airport to see him off, Hassoun's brother, Sami, told the Associated Press.

The circumstances of Hassoun's return to Lebanon from Iraq and how he ended up at the embassy were unclear. Hassoun "came voluntarily and remained at the embassy while embassy and Department of Defense officials worked out the arrangements for his departure," an embassy statement said.

When Hassoun disappeared, the Marines said he was on "unauthorized leave" but changed his status to "captured" after the videotape of him blindfolded. The Pentagon said yesterday his status had changed from "captured" to "returned to military control."