The Daily Star
BEIRUT: The case of the seven Estonian cyclists kidnapped in Lebanon is expected to return to the forefront of security and media attention with new information coming to light that indicates they were transferred to Syria.
The new lead was the end result of around three weeks’ work by a joint investigative team which is being handled by Lebanese, Estonian and French police, a security source told The Daily Star.
The source said the investigation resulted in information which strongly suggests that the kidnapped Estonians are currently in Syria.
“There is important information in that regard but it is not in the investigation’s interests to reveal it, so it won’t undermine the work of the police team which is comprised of Lebanese, Estonian and French investigators who are accurately following the case’s leads,” said the source.
The seven men, all in their 30s, were nabbed on March 23 in the Bekaa Valley area shortly after entering Lebanon on their bicycles from Syria.
Another security source told The Daily Star that a Lebanese security team technically examined a video uploaded to YouTube showing the Estonians begging Lebanese, Saudi, Jordanian and French leaders to secure their release. The video was also sent to Lebanese news website Lebanon Files.
According to the security source, after examining the video, the police team reached a decisive conclusion that the recorded tape was sent to Lebanon Files from Damascus and that the team was able to identify the area it was sent from.
“The theory that the kidnappers transferred the Estonian hostages to Syrian territory, hours after they abducted them, is being reinforced day after day,” the source said.
The source added that the kidnappers’ motive was to be safe from military and security pressure as well as the raids and chases that are being widely and speedily executed by the Lebanese security apparatus in the Bekaa Valley area in search of the kidnappers.
When asked if there was Lebanese-Syrian security coordination to find out the fate of the Estonians and set them free, the source said investigations were “being pursued by the Estonians and the French through political and diplomatic means upon the request and insistence of the Estonians.”
Sources following up on the case said information gathered thus far confirmed the initial theory of Lebanese security sources that the kidnapping was politically motivated.
“The information that was recently obtained by detectives reinforces the Lebanese point-of-view that already placed the kidnapping’s political dimensions at the forefront of the theories being worked on,” one of the sources said.
The sources added that the content of the video showing the abducted cyclists as well as the political leaders whom they appealed to for help, including Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Bin Aziz, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, French President Nicholas Sarkozy, and caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri, confirms that the issue is political and that the party who ordered the kidnapping sought to exploit the incident to gain leverage in regional bickering.
According to these sources, the incident wasn’t merely a local kidnapping whose goals were limited to the Lebanese interior, and thus, it is no longer an internal issue as it is tied to the complex regional situation.
A previously unheard of group, Haraket Al-Nahda Wal-Islah (Movement for Renewal and Reform), has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and demanded an unspecified ransom to free the seven Estonians in two emails sent to Lebanon Files.
The Lebanese judiciary arrested 11 people who allegedly participated in the kidnapping. Four of those arrested and charged in the case are Sunni fundamentalists, but security sources said the men were hired to execute the abduction but did not mastermind the plan.
Abductions have been rare in Lebanon since the end of the 1975-90 Civil War.
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