Hussein Ali Omar, one of
the 11 kidnapped Lebanese pilgrims in Syria by armed rebels, arrived in Beirut
on Saturday.
Family members and
several officials including Interior Minister Marwan Charbel gathered at Rafik
Hariri International Airport to welcome Omar.
TV footage showed Omar
in a good health and wearing a red tie printed on it the Turkish flag.
Omar told reporters that
the other 10 men are in a good health, thanking the media for their efforts.
“I call on the Turkish
authorities to exert efforts to free the remaining Lebanese in Syria,” Omar
said.
“We were treated well
and the remaining 10 Lebanese are in good health.”
The 11 men were
kidnapped on May 22 in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo upon their return
from a pilgrimage to Iran.
Fireworks were launched
in Beirut’s southern suburbs upon the arrival of Omar.
Family members and the
families of the 10 remaining men gathered to welcome him home.
“We were promised that
my mates will be freed as soon as possible… Probably in the upcoming five days”
Omar said.
He pointed out that he
left the other 10 men on Friday night not knowing that he will be released.
Conflicting reports in
the past weeks raised question marks on their fate after Syrian forces shelled
the area where they were being held in the town of Aazaz near the Turkish
border.
Charbel told reporters
at the airport that the “Turkish authorities are smoothly exerting efforts to
free the remaining kidnapped Lebanese.”
Omar received telephone
calls from several officials including former President Michel Suleiman,
Speaker Nabih Berri, Prime Minister Najib Miqati, ex-PM Saad Hariri, Foreign
Minister Adnan Mansour and others.
Earlier, Turkish Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu telephoned Speaker Nabih Berri and Premier Miqati to
inform them that Omar will arrive in Beirut aboard a Turkish plane on Saturday
night.
The PM’s press office
said Miqati hoped that Turkish authorities would exert further efforts to
guarantee the safe return of the remaining Lebanese home.
Omar appeared in a video
crossing the border into Turkey, and then speaking to the Doha-based al-Jazeera
channel praising his captors, insisting he and the others were "guests,
not captives."
"We thank the
brothers, rebels of Syria, for their treatment... We have been guests, not
captives," he said in the footage.
"We call on the
Lebanese people and the dormant Arab peoples, to stand up and support this
oppressed people of Syria," he said.
The spokesman of the
rebels of Aazaz, Mohammed Nour, announced in a video that the kidnappers
released 60-year-old Omar, who hails from the town of Ain al-Sawda in Baalbek,
after the mediation of Ulemas and as a goodwill gesture.
He said the fate of the
other abductees will be decided after messages are sent to the counties
neighboring Syria and other Arab states on setting their stance from the
revolution against President Bashar Assad.
We ask Hizbullah to
recognize the revolution, Nour said.
A member of the Association
of Muslim Scholars, Sheikh Nabil Rahim, told LBCI that he expected the other 10
to be released soon.http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/51236
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