The Americans had been held since November 1979

England have

The 52 American hostages held at the US embassy in Tehran for more than 14 months have arrived in West Germany on their way home to the United States.

The former diplomats and embassy staff stepped from the plane onto the tarmac at Wiesbaden airport looking tired but elated after their 4,000-mile (6,437km) flight from Iran.

Some waved to the crowd of well-wishers who had gathered, others gave the V-for-victory sign.

Iran finally agreed to release the hostages after the US said it would release assets frozen in American and other banks, including the Bank of England, since the embassy was seized.

Former president Jimmy Carter, appointed as President Ronald Reagan's special envoy, has flown in to welcome home the embassy staff he had hoped would be freed while he was still in charge at the White House.

Stories of the "abominable treatment" the men and women suffered at the hands of their Iranian captors are beginning to emerge.

Letters from home were burned in front of the hostages, there were regular beatings and some talked of games of Russian roulette.

The Americans were flown via Algiers to Wiesbaden, where they will now be cared for at a military hospital while their conditions are assessed.

The US government has tried to dissuade families from flying out to Germany for reunions with their loved ones until they have been confirmed fit.

Reporters were able to shout a few questions to hostages who appeared briefly on the hospital balcony. One man said they had had no idea they were about to be released.

The hostage ordeal began in November 1979 when a group of radical Iranian students stormed the American embassy in Tehran. Everyone inside was taken captive.

The students were angered by American support for the Shah, who fled into exile in January 1979 and arrived in the United States in October for cancer treatment. They demanded the Shah's return to stand trial for alleged crimes in office.

They had the backing of the Iranian government, led by Ayatollah Khomeini. But their demands for the Shah's extradition were foiled when he fled to Cairo.

The students still refused to release their hostages, however, until President Carter was defeated in the US elections. This paved the way for fresh negotiations with the Algerians acting as intermediaries.

Lamen Khalifa Fhimah is wanted in connection with the Lockerbie bombing

The 15-nation Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution urging Libya ''immediately to provide a full and effective response'' to the British and American demand that the two men - Lamen Khalifa Fhimah and Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi - be surrendered to stand trial.

The resolution also ordered Libya to co-operate with France's investigation into the bombing of a French-owned UTA airliner over Nigeria in 1989, in which 171 people lost their lives.

Western diplomats said that they would seek selective UN sanctions against Libya ''in a matter of weeks'' if the two Lockerbie suspects are not handed over.

The pair are accused of conspiring to place a bomb concealed in a radio cassette recorder in a suitcase on board an Air Malta flight that connected to Pan Am 103 in Frankfurt.

The bomb exploded over Lockerbie on 21 December, 1988, killing all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground.

Police in Scotland and the US originally suspected the Syrian-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC) of having a role in the bombing.

But further evidence led the authorities to conclude that Libya ordered and carried out the attack in retaliation for the downing of an Iranian airliner by a US missile in 1988.

The resolution marks the first occasion the Security Council has told a country to extradite any of its citizens.

It is also the first time the UN has implicitly accused a fellow member state of being involved in state terrorism.

Despite the move, families of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing criticised the United Nations resolution for being weak and inadequate.

"There is ample evidence that both Syria and Iran were involved," said Daniel Cohen whose 20-year-old daughter, Theodora, died in the crash.

"But, because of political reasons the United States and Great Britain have drawn the Pan Am 103 case very narrowly, accusing only two Libyans."

A senior Libyan official said that Tripoli had no intention of extraditing the men.

Jadualah Azuz Talhi, a former foreign minister who led a Libyan delegation, told the security council that the suspects were innocent until proven guilty.

strangle: to kill by squeezing the throat of so as to cut off the air（扼死）