PHOTO: The Hermel region of the eastern Bekaa Valley in northeast Lebanon
Ben Decker writes for EA:
Lebanese security officials confirmed on Sunday that five Czech nationals have probably been abducted in the Bekaa Valley in the northeast of the country.
The men disappeared with their Lebanese driver on Friday in Kefraya. The Czechs were named as Jan Svarc, Adam Homsi, Miroslav Dobes, Pavil Kofron K., and Martin Psik.
The driver, Munir Taan, is reportedly the brother of Ali Taan, aka Ali Fayyad, a Western-educated Hezbollah political strategist arrested last year in the Czech Republic. The high-profile January 2014 arrest led to a wave of protests outside both the Czech and US Embassies in Beirut.
Sources in Prague said Homsi was the translator who was involved in Ali Fayyad’s case, while Svarc is his lawyer.
Dobes is a journalist and business director of Jindrichohradecka TV, a small regional channel. Pavil Kofron K. is a journalist and program director at Jindrichohradecka. The two were reportedly working on two projects, one on Fayyad and the other on the situation along Lebanon’s eastern border with Syria.
An online document identified Psik as a military intelligence member.
No further link between the arrest and Friday’s events has yet been established. State Prosecutor Samir Hammoud said Lebanese authorities were looking into “all possibilities”.
However, there is speculation that Munir Taan could have assisted the abductors in an area of the Bekaa Valley where Hezbollah enjoys strong support. One theory is that Hezbollah ordered the abduction, hoping to secure the release of members who were arrested in last year’s arrests in Europe.
State Prosecutor Hammoud said the possibility is being investigated: “Things are still vague and the reasons behind the kidnapping, that is if a kidnapping did actually take place, are not clear. We don’t know if there are political or financial motives.”
