Abdullah Abu Deif (Beirut, Cairo)
The detention of hostages in a bank in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, ended yesterday, after the authorities agreed to give a Lebanese gunman part of his frozen funds in exchange for the release of all six hostages.
A security source said that 42-year-old Bassam Hussein entered the branch of the Lebanese Federal Bank in the Hamra neighborhood in west Beirut with a gun before noon yesterday.
The security source added: “He asked for his money, which amounted to more than 200 thousand dollars, and when the employees refused because it was not valid, he started screaming,” saying: “My family is in the hospital, then he pulled out the weapon and started threatening.”
The gunman’s sister, and the head of the depositors’ association, told local media that the hostage-taking ended six hours later, when the bank agreed to give the man about $30,000. It was not clear whether the terms of the settlement included any criminal charges.
The source explained that some of the agents managed to escape before the gunman closed the doors to the rest.
The Ministry of Interior confirmed that at least one elderly man had been released from the bank due to his age, and that the government had sent negotiators to start talks with the hostage taker.
Hassan Halawa, director of the Federal Bank of Lebanon branch, in the Hamra district of Beirut, said that the remaining six hostages are five employees of the branch, including him and a client.
Crowds gathered outside the bank, many of them chanting slogans such as: “Down, down with the bank party.”
A man shouted: “We are deposited and we want our money. We are with him, and we are ready to help him. We are all deposited.”
Lebanese banks placed restrictions on most depositors withdrawing foreign currencies during the financial meltdown, which the country has been witnessing for three years, and which pushed more than three quarters of the population into poverty.
Since the financial crisis began in Lebanon in 2019, many commercial banks have frozen customer balances in foreign currency as they put in place informal capital controls.
Banks set a cap on monthly cash withdrawals in US dollars, and allow other limited amounts of Lebanese pounds to be withdrawn at a rate much lower than the parallel market rate, which led to a significant reduction in the original value of deposits.
For his part, Rami Feng, a member of the Lebanese Parliament, said in statements to Al-Ittihad that the accumulated crises made the ruling authority unable to continue to run the country, with the dispute continuing over the governor of the Banque du Liban remaining in his position.
Feng considered that President Michel Aoun holds the Governor of the Banque du Liban, Riad Salameh, responsible for the financial crisis and for disrupting the criminal audit of the central bank’s accounts, while the Speaker of Parliament refuses to dismiss Salameh.
He explained that although Prime Minister Najib Mikati also refused to dismiss Salameh, considering that “no one changes his officers during the war,” but he retracted and confirmed that he had no objection to replacing Salameh, but he stipulated political consensus.
The independent Lebanese MP considered that political consensus is currently excluded, in light of the inability to form a government with the approaching date of electing a new president of the republic, at a time when Lebanon needs urgent measures to stop the economic collapse.
Feng stressed that the current economic crisis requires a comprehensive reform program to address the accumulated challenges, and then achieve economic and financial stability and lay the foundations for sustainable growth.
It also requires effective policies and reforms to revive the economy, rebuild confidence and broad support from all regional and global powers, as well as explicit acknowledgment of the losses in the financial system and agreement on the way to address them.
He warned that all of this is not achievable in light of the quota policies and unprecedented corruption in the state structure.
Feng stated that the entitlement to elect a president of the republic would put Lebanon at a crossroads, either by electing a new president who would bring together all the components of the country, and to rise through this consensus from the catastrophe in which it occurred, or a complete collapse of the Lebanese state would occur.