The Lebanese judiciary released a young man who was held hostage in a bank for several hours to claim his deposited money after the bank forfeited his personal rights, the National News Agency and a court official said Tuesday.
And the agency said “the discriminatory Attorney General, Judge Ghassan Al-Khoury, gave the signal to release the depositor, Bassam Sheikh Hussein, following the presence of a Federal Bank agent (…) discriminatory public prosecution and confiscated the personal rights of the bank.”
A court official told AFP that “due to the termination of the personal file and the circumstances of the case, it was decided to leave the detainee with a residence document,” but Sheikh Hussein was transferred to the Appellate Prosecutor’s Office in Beirut, and “Al-Khoury asked to be held accountable for the crimes, related to kidnapping and threats to citizens”.
Last Thursday, Sheikh Hussein walked into the Federal Bank building in West Beirut’s crowded Hamra neighborhood with a gun and demanded that employees get his deposit to get his father treated, he said.
The security forces set up a tight cordon around the bank and negotiated with the angry depositor, asking him to open the bank door and release the detained employees. Hours later, Sheikh Hussein surrendered and agreed to release the hostages, “agreeing to give him $30,000 of his bail, which is $209,000,” according to the National News Agency.
Sheikh Hussain was greeted with widespread solidarity as dozens of people gathered in front of the bank’s door to show their support for him, and social media sites were full of comments supporting him and demanding his money back, especially with growing dissatisfaction with banks. Since the fall of 2019, with the onset of an economic collapse that the World Bank rates as the worst in the world since 1850, banks have imposed strict restrictions on the withdrawal of bank deposits, which have gradually increased until it became almost impossible for depositors to manage their money, especially in dollars US, while deposits in local currency were lost. Its value of the lira fell by more than ninety percent against the dollar. Over the past two years, banking waiting rooms have repeatedly seen problems between angry citizens wanting their deposits and employees who were following the instructions of their administrations.
