BEIRUT: The arrest of a man and woman suspected of involvement in kidnapping and auto theft in the Bekaa Valley topped Friday’s police reports.
“In the last three months of 2012, an unidentified woman lured the owners of three new-model taxis to the Bekaa, where she stole them in collaboration with other people,” the Internal Security Forces said in a statement.
The woman, identified in the statement as M.Z. was arrested by members of the judicial police in the Hay al-Sellom suburb of Beirut on Dec. 31. An accomplice, Kh.S., was apprehended two days later, and police are pursuing other suspects.
M.Z. confessed to the three auto thefts as well as stealing a Hyundai she had rented from a Bir Hasan company with fake documents.
The statement said the 29-year-old also admitted to working with others to kidnap a child, H.S., from the Bekaa town of Shmustar a month ago. The child was returned in exchange for ransom.
Hussein Audi, a 38-year-old Syrian national, told police in the Bekaa Valley village of Younin that he was held up Thursday night on Rasm alHadath’s main road. Audi said three masked individuals in a BMW brandished a weapon and threatened to kill him, taking $30,000, as well as 200,000 Syrian pounds and jewelry.
In the Chouf coastal town of Rmeileh, five armed individuals, including three women, driving a silver Toyota SUV robbed a Syrian man of $600. The perpetrators broke into Mohammad Nayef’s room and threatened to kill him before making away with the money as well as some electrical appliances.
In another robbery, three armed and masked men robbed Syrian workers at a construction site owned by Issam Ghanem in the Jezzine village of Kfar Jarra. The men said they were robbed of three mobile phones, $600, LL150,000 and 1,200 Syrian pounds.
In Baalbek, a generator worth LL4.5 million was stolen from an office of the Tobacco Regie.
The ISF reported several drug-related incidents. In the Beirut neighborhood of Cola, police arrested a man identified as Mohammad T. for selling drugs and Ahmad T. for drug use. They were referred to the judiciary for further investigation.
Police detained a man identified as Hasan K. in Badaro for selling marijuana, and he was referred to the Narcotics Control Bureau.
In the Palestinian refugee camp of Shatila, Wissam Qaddawi and a man known as Abu Musa exchanged fire. The fighting erupted between the two Palestinians over Qaddawi’s construction of a room across from an office of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, of which Abu Musa is a member. Qaddawi is a member of Fatah. No casualties were reported in the incident.
In Sabra, police sources said a Lebanese man named Tawfiq Saadoun had been shot in the leg after fighting with Palestinians Safi and Ibrahim Droubi. Saadoun was transported to hospital for treatment.
In the Al-Qasr village of Hermel, residents prevented an ISF patrol from removing illegal construction on public land by a man named Ali Jaafar.