Kidnapped Czechs Freed, Handed Over to General Security

Five Czech citizens who were kidnapped in the Bekaa region in July 2015 were freed on Monday, state-run National News Agency reported.

“The five Czechs who were abducted in July on the Kifraya road in western Bekaa were released this evening,” NNA said.

“They were handed over to the Lebanese General Security,” it added.

Al-Jadeed television said the freed men were “on their way to Beirut,” escorted by General Security agents.

The Czech foreign ministry said in a statement that the five "are alive and, according to our information, in satisfactory health," adding that a special plane would be sent to repatriate them shortly.

The ministry declined to give further details due to "the investigation underway managed by the anti-organized crime department of the Czech police."

The five Czech nationals had been identified as Jan Švarc, Adam Homsi, Miroslav Dobeš, Merlin Pešek and Pavel Kofroň.

They had vanished along with their Lebanese driver, Munir Taan, and their car was discovered in the Kifraya region in the western part of the Bekaa.

Media reports at the time said the five had entered Lebanon on June 7.

A media report had linked the abduction to the Czech Republic's arrest of a man suspected of having ties to Hizbullah.

Citing “intersecting security reports,” MTV identified the Lebanese driver as “a brother of Ali Taan -- also known as Ali Fayyad -- who was apprehended in the Czech Republic during a recent wave of arrests that targeted Hizbullah security cadres in Europe.”

Prior to their abduction, the Czechs were in Lebanon on a “journalistic mission,” MTV said.

The cameras that were found in their abandoned car “were used only hours prior to their abduction when they conducted a TV interview with a local official in the Baalbek region,” MTV added.

“He was the last person who came in contact with them,” the TV network said.

As Safir newspaper has reported that Ali Taan, aka Ali Fayyad, was arrested in the Czech Republic on “arms trade charges.”

“Fayyad has the Ukrainian nationality and he used to occupy an official post in Ukraine,” the newspaper said.

Y.R.