In 1982, the situation in Lebanon started to become more chaotic and violent. In 1985, three years before Higgins's kidnapping,
William Francis Buckley, another retired American lieutenant colonel working for the
CIA had been kidnapped, tortured, and murdered. On February 17, 1988, this situation repeated itself when Higgins, who was serving as the Chief, Observer Group Lebanon and Senior Military Observer, United Nations Military Observer Group,
United Nations Truce Supervision Organization, was abducted. Higgins was driving alone on the coastal highway between
Tyre and
Naqoura in southern Lebanon, returning from a meeting with a local leader of the Amal movement, when a car blocked the road in front of him and forced him to stop, after which he was pulled from his vehicle by armed men suspected of being affiliated with
Hezbollah. As a reaction to his abduction, the
United Nations Security Council adopted
Resolution 618, demanding his release. During his captivity, he was interrogated and tortured. Higgins was eventually charged with "spying for the criminal United States on our Lebanese and Palestinian peoples,” and "active participation in American conspiracies against our Muslim people.” Higgins, the statement went on to elaborate, worked in Lebanon supervising a "Pentagon team to combat Lebanese and Palestinian Islamic organizations in Palestine and Lebanon.” American governmental officials rejected the accusations as "nonsense,” and noted that Higgins had not been working on behalf of the United States government, but for the United Nations on a peacekeeping mission. On July 31, 1989, the group announced that it had executed Higgins by hanging, and publicly released a videotape of the act along with a statement calling the graphic footage "an opening gift" for Israel and the United States. This was in retaliation for the abduction of
Hezbollah leader Sheik
Abdul Karim Obeid by Israeli commandos in
South Lebanon, July 27, 1989, during which two other people accompanying Obeid also were taken and a neighbour killed. The footage showed images of Higgins' body hanging by the neck as he slowly suffocated to death, The video was also examined by Israeli security services, who raised doubts about its authenticity. Among other things, Higgins is seen in the video wearing a coat and winter clothes, which do not match the summer weather in July in Lebanon. Afterwards, with the return of his body to the Americans, knife cuts were discovered in his throat – which was likely the cause of death. According to the researchers who examined all the evidence, Higgins was murdered in December 1988. Higgins was declared dead on July 6, 1990. His remains were recovered on December 23, 1991, by Major Jens Nielsen of the
Royal Danish Army, who was attached to the United Nations Observation Group in Beirut. The remains were found in an advanced state of decomposition beside a
mosque near a south
Beirut hospital. His body had been buried for several months prior. After Higgins was murdered, his kidnappers buried the body. They then dug it out almost a year later, with their public statements. A memorial and religious service for Higgins had previously been held in November 1989 at Louisville's Southern High School, from which Higgins had graduated in 1963. ==Aftermath==