Bassil Bodyguard Seizes Phone of Prominent Journalist at U.N. Forum

A bodyguard of caretaker Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil on Tuesday snatched the cellphone of a prominent journalist during a U.N. forum in Geneva, the journalist said.

“Lebanese FM Jebran Bassil had his security confiscate my phone and erase the video when I was trying to interview him at UN Refugees forum in Geneva,” Lebanese-German journalist Jaafar Abdul Karim tweeted.

“UN Security is investigating the incident,” he added.

Abdul Karim is an award winning journalist and the host of a popular Arabic-language talk show on Germany’s Deutsche Welle television.

Sources close to Bassil meanwhile told LBCI TV that the journalist “did not ask for an interview with the minister but rather repeatedly filmed his movements with his phone and tried to take a statement from him as he was walking in the lobby of the U.N. headquarters.”

“This provoked Swiss and Lebanese security guards tasked with protecting the minister,” the sources added.