JEDDAH, 5 June 2004 — Syrian police have won the release of a Saudi kidnapped for ransom by a six-member Syrian gang while he was on his way to Lebanon. Okaz daily said the gang threatened to kill the man if his family failed to pay SR500,000. The paper said the man recently reunited with his family in the Kingdom.
The armed gangsters picked up the man, who was identified only as Ibrahim, while he was driving to Lebanon where he was going to spend his holiday. “They stopped me on the Syrian-Lebanese border and took me to a cellar where they kept me without food or water and tortured me,” Ibrahim said.
He was then forced to contact his brother to tell him the gangsters were demanding SR500,000 for his release. “When I tried to escape from the cellar the gangsters started firing at me from all sides and I fainted. Then they locked me up again,” he added.
After three days, the gangsters told Ibrahim that his brother Abdul Aziz had agreed to pay the ransom. He was then driven to a border village and from there to a security post, where he was released.
His brother was waiting for him at the police station. “It was a pleasant surprise,” Ibrahim said. Abdul Aziz told the paper he traveled to Syria after receiving information that his brother had been kidnapped. He said the gangsters had designated a spot for the handover of the money, but Syrian police had already been informed despite warning from the gangsters that they would “cut Ibrahim into little pieces” if he involved them. The police told Abdul Aziz to barter the gangsters down to SR370,000.
