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Terry Anderson Dead At 76, After Years Of Being Abducted In Lebanon

Terry Anderson Dead At 76, Years Of Being Abducted In Lebanon

US journalist Terry Anderson dead at 76, after being abducted in Lebanon for several years. He died after a heart surgery.

Terry Anderson, the world-traveling Associated Press correspondent who was kidnapped off a street in war-torn Lebanon in 1985 and kept captive for nearly seven years, became one of America’s longest-held hostages. Anderson has away at the age of 76.

Anderson, whose best-selling 1993 memoir “Den of Lions” detailed his kidnapping and grueling captivity by Islamic terrorists, passed away on Sunday at his Greenwood Lake, New York, home, according to his daughter Sulome Anderson.

Per his daughter, Anderson passed away due to complications following recent heart surgery.

Terry had a strong commitment to provide firsthand accounts from the ground and showed incredible bravery and fortitude during his time as a captive. As a result of his job, he and his family made many sacrifices, for which we are incredibly grateful,” said Julie Pace, senior vice president and executive editor of the AP.

Sulome Anderson stated, “He never liked to be called a hero, but everyone insisted on calling him that.” When I saw him a week ago, my partner asked him if he had any goals or anything he wanted to do. “I’ve lived so much and I’ve done so much,” he exclaimed. I’m happy.

Following his return to the United States in 1991, Anderson maintained a nomadic life, lecturing publicly, teaching journalism at a number of prestigious universities, and running a gourmet restaurant, horse ranch, blues bar, and Cajun restaurant at different points in his life.

Along with dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, he lost most of the millions of dollars he gained from frozen Iranian assets after a federal court found that Iran was involved in his kidnapping. In 2009, he declared bankruptcy.

After retiring from the University of Florida in 2015, Anderson made his home on a small horse farm he had found while out camping with friends in a peaceful, rural area of northern Virginia.

He laughed as he stated, “I live in the country and it’s quiet out here and a nice place, so I’m doing all right.” This was in a 2018 interview with The Associated Press.

Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim organization, kidnapped Anderson in 1985 along with a number of other Westerners amid a war that had left Lebanon in ruins.

He was greeted with heroism upon his return to the AP’s New York headquarters upon his release.

The AP’s president and CEO at the time, Louis D. Boccardi, remembered on Sunday that Anderson’s suffering was never far from his colleagues’ minds.

“The word ‘hero’ gets tossed around a lot but applying it to Terry Anderson just enhances it,” remarked Boccardi. “His six-and-a-half-year ordeal as a hostage of terrorists was as unimaginable as it was real — chains, being transported from hiding place to hiding place strapped to the chassis of a truck, given often inedible food, cut off from the world he reported on with such skill and caring.”