By Rakan al-Fakih
BAALBEK, Lebanon: A local teenager
was freed Sunday after a four-day kidnapping ordeal in return for a $78,000
ransom. At around 4 a.m. Sunday, the captors of Ziad Khaled Abu Esber, 16,
released him on a rural side road, near the village of Jamalieh. The kidnappers
informed his father by phone of the teenager’s whereabouts and he arrived
shortly after to find Abu Esber shivering by the side of the road.
A relative told The Daily Star that
his father had paid the kidnappers approximately $78,000 half an hour before
his son’s release.
Last week, three men in a four-wheel
drive vehicle took Abu Esber from his father’s cattle ranch near Baalbek in the
Bekaa region. They also threatened to shoot a ranch worker who had seen their
faces.
Abu Esber’s father told The Daily
Star last week that he received a call from the gang demanding a ransom of
$150,000. He said he didn’t have the funds, especially given the fact that his
ranch sustained extensive damage during a snowstorm last year.
Kidnappings for ransom have become a
familiar occurrence in the Bekaa region lately, with four abduction operations
targeting Syrians in recent months.
Last week, Syrian brothers Hisham
and Imad Abdul-Raouf, 45 and 47, along with their driver Khaled al-Hamadah, 23,
were released after 18 days in captivity. Their captors received a ransom of
$90,000.
Addressing well-wishers who arrived
at his house Sunday to congratulate him and his son, Khaled Abu Esber expressed
gratitude to the security services for their efforts in locating his son.
Of the kidnappers, who remain at large, he said:
“Those who take part in such cowardly and condemnable actions have no moral or
humanitarian values, and such aberrant behavior is foreign to the customs and
practices of the people of the Bekaa.”http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/Mar-05/165524-abducted-bekaa-teenager-freed-in-exchange-for-ransom.ashx#axzz1oM3eP0Kk
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