BEIRUT:
Members of the group of Lebanese pilgrims kidnapped in Syria in May said Sunday
they were in good health and guests until their release is secured.
“We
haven’t been subjected to any torture,” Ali Abbas, one of the 11 men, told
Almayadeen TV station, adding that he was in good health.
“Me
and two others were sick and the kidnappers provided us with medicine,” he told
the TV station, which was monitored carefully by relatives in Lebanon.
Ali
Tormos, Abbas Hammoud, Hasan Hammoud, Hussein Omar, Jamil Saleh and Hasan
Arzouni - five other members of the group kidnapped on May 22 – also spoke of
their experiences in brief audio clips.
They
said they were good health and only guests, and not hostages.
The
11 men were kidnapped near the northern Syrian province of Aleppo on May 22
while returning from a Shiite religious pilgrimage in Iran.
One
of their kidnappers, who identified himself as Abu Ibrahim, told the recently
launched station that the 11 men were his guests.
“We
have guests. We just have a message to the Lebanese about Hezbollah’s position
toward the Syrian revolution and the statements by Hezbollah Secretary-General
Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah supporting the Syrian regime,” he said, when asked what
his message to the Lebanese government was.
In
an interview with The New Yorker published Saturday, Abu Ibrahim said: “Through
the people we are holding we are sending a message to the Shiite people to
support the Syrian people, not the regime.”
When
asked by Almayadeen whether he and the hostages were located on Syrian of
Turkish territory, Abu Ibrahim said he was in the former.
“We
and the [pilgrims] are in an area fully liberated from Syrian regime control,”
he said.
A
reporter for The New Yorker who met three of three of the hostages - Ali
Zagheeb, 44, from the Bekaa; Awad Ibrahim, 46, from Baalbek and Abbas, 29, from
south Lebanon – said the brief encounter with the hostages tool place in Azaz,
some 3.5 kilometers from the Turkish border.
Earlier
this month, there were hopes that two of the hostages would be released soon.
In
a statement carried by Al-Jazeera TV on July 18, the kidnappers said their
decision to release two hostages came in response to calls by the committee of
Muslim scholars in Lebanon.
“We
will release two of our guests to their families under the auspices of the
committee ... and the state of Qatar,” said the statement, which was part of
the third video of the hostages that the Doha-based channel has run. The video
gave no date for the release.
The
video aired on the same day that President Michel Sleiman held talks with
officials in Ankara about the kidnapping. Several reports said Sleiman would
seek to win the hostages’ release before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
When
asked of the chances that some of the pilgrims would be released within the
holy month of Ramadan, Abu Ibrahim told Almayadeen there was a possibility that
this could take place.
Abu
Ibrahim described himself as a civilian and part of the revolution but denied
being a member of the Free Syrian Army.
When
asked how he was able to support the 11 men in his custody, Abu Ibrahim said he
received large financial support from Syrian businessmen abroad.
“Thank
God, we are a big group. My group has large financial funding ... Our work in
the revolution isn’t just to resist the Syrian regime but we act as police and
work at the civilian, economic and health levels. Syrian businessmen outside
and Europe ... have put large quantities of money at their disposal,” he said.
In
his interview with The New Yorker, Abu Ibrahim said he had received some 1.3
million euros ($1.6 million) in financial assistance from the government of
Qatar.
He said the money had
helped mostly with food and medicine.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/Jul-29/182501-kidnapper-says-11-lebanese-pilgrims-safe-in-good-health.ashx#axzz225PKpA6R
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