By Kareen Chehayeb and Fay Abuelgasim | Related Press
BEIRUT — A hostage standoff through which a gunman demanded a Beirut financial institution let him withdraw his trapped financial savings in order that he might pay his father’s medical payments ended seven hours later with the person’s give up Thursday. No accidents had been reported.
Authorities stated Bassam al-Sheikh Hussein, a 42-year-old food-delivery driver, entered the financial institution with a shotgun and a canister of gasoline, fired three warning pictures and locked himself in with as much as 10 hostages, threatening to set himself on hearth except he was allowed to take out his cash.
After hours of negotiations, he accepted a proposal from the financial institution to obtain a part of his financial savings, in line with native media and a depositors group that took half within the talks. He then launched his hostages, and police whisked him away as he walked out of the financial institution.
He didn't really obtain any of the cash, in line with a lawyer who supplied authorized assist to Hussein and his household.
His spouse, Mariam Chehadi, who was standing outdoors, informed reporters after his arrest that her husband “did what he needed to do.”
The hostage drama within the metropolis’s bustling Hamra district was the most recent painful episode in Lebanon’s financial free-fall, now in its third 12 months. The nation’s cash-strapped banks since 2019 have slapped strict limits on withdrawals of overseas forex property, tying up the financial savings of tens of millions of individuals.
Hussein had $210,000 trapped within the financial institution and been struggling to withdraw his cash to pay his father’s medical payments, stated Hassan Moghnieh, who as head of the advocacy group Affiliation of Depositors in Lebanon took half within the negotiations.
Hussein’s brother Atef, standing outdoors the financial institution, informed The Related Press through the standoff that his brother could be prepared to show himself in if the financial institution gave him cash to assist with the payments and different household bills.
“My brother shouldn't be a scoundrel. He's a good man,” Atef al-Sheikh Hussein stated. “He takes what he has from his personal pocket to present to others.”
Lebanese troopers, officers from the nation’s Inner Safety Forces and intelligence brokers converged on the realm through the standoff. Seven or eight financial institution workers had been taken hostage together with two clients, George al-Haj, head of the Financial institution Workers Syndicate, informed native media.
Dozens of protesters gathered, chanting slogans in opposition to the Lebanese authorities and banks, hoping that the gunman would obtain his financial savings. Some bystanders hailed him as a hero.
Lebanon is affected by the worst financial disaster in its trendy historical past. Three-quarters of the inhabitants has plunged into poverty, and the Lebanese pound has declined in worth by greater than 90% in opposition to the U.S. greenback.
“What led us to this example is the state’s failure to resolve this financial disaster and the banks’ and Central Financial institution’s actions, the place folks can solely retrieve a few of their very own cash as if it’s a weekly allowance,” stated Dina Abou Zor, a lawyer with the advocacy group Depositors’ Union who was among the many protesters. “And this has led to folks taking issues into their very own arms.”
In January, a espresso store proprietor withdrew $50,000 trapped in a financial institution in Lebanon after taking workers hostage and threatening to kill them.