Lebanese minister tackles developments in abducted pilgrims case
NOW Lebanon
06
Apr
2013
Lebanese Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said that there is an ongoing effort to secure the safe return of Lebanese nationals who were abducted in Syria’s Aleppo last May. These remarks come amid reports that their abductors have been killed.
“The follow up efforts being done [seek] to find a way to return the abductees to Lebanon,” Charbel said in remarks published by An-Naharnewspaper on Saturday.
The daily reported that the issue was brought back to the surface after Charbel announced that he had been informed by Turkish authorities of the death of the mastermind behind the abduction. He was known to go by the name of Abu Ibrahim.
However, Free Syrian Army spokesperson Louay al-Moqdad told the Beirut daily that interior minister Charbel’s information “was not the right one to be communicated.”
He also declined to state whether or not the abductor of the Lebanese pilgrims had been killed.
In May 2012, 11 Lebanese pilgrims were abducted in Azaz in the Aleppo district while returning from a pilgrimage to Iran. The FSA repeatedly denied its involvement in the abduction.
