Man Robbed after Brief Kidnap in Baalbek as Family of 2 Abductees Blocks Road
Lebanese citizen Joseph George Ghanem, 50, was briefly abducted on Saturday in the Bekaa city of Baalbek, state-run National News Agency reported.
Ghanem, the representative of the Bush Hardware Company in the Bekaa, was freed around an hour from his abduction after the armed kidnappers robbed him of $4,000, a credit card and his personal cellphone, NNA said.
He was nabbed during his work outside the Jabaq stores in Baalbek, according to the agency.
Meanwhile, relatives of Khaled and Mustafa al-Hujeiri, who were abducted overnight in Bekaa's Taalbaya, blocked the Taalbaya-Saadnayel highway in protest at their kidnap.
The road was reopened later on Saturday.
A relative of the two men told LBCI TV that the kidnappers arrived at their house in Taalbaya in three black SUVs and claimed to be State Security agents.
“The family stressed that the abduction came in response to the death of a soldier from the Hamiyeh family at the hands of al-Nusra Front,” LBCI said, referring to Lebanese army soldier Mohammed Hamiyeh, who was executed by the Qaida-linked group.
Hamiyeh was one of three captive troops murdered by Nusra and the Islamic State group after their abduction along with dozens of security personnel during the deadly August clashes in the Bekaa border town of Arsal.
Khaled al-Hujeiri's sister told LBCI that the family was contacted in the wake of Hamiyeh's execution by individuals who advised them to hide her brother “because members of the Hamiyeh family want to kidnap him.”
She said they received another phone call around two weeks later.
“We are not an easy prey and we can break the hand of those who attack us. I'm addressing these remarks to the Hamiyeh family and we know how to take our right with our own hands,” a brother of Khaled, who appeared in LBCI's report, threatened.
Y.R.
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