Prague/Beirut, July 18 (CTK) – Five Czechs have gone missing in eastern Lebanon, the Czech Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Michaela Lagronova told CTK Saturday, confirming a local daily’s information, and Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek said he has talked about the case with his Lebanese counterpart.
Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star wrote Saturday that the missing Czechs, aged from 25 to 47, might have been kidnapped.
Lagronova would not comment on the media speculations indicating a possible connection between the disappearance of the Czech citizens and the arrest of a Lebanese national in Prague.
Earlier Saturday, Lagronova said the ministry received information from the Lebanese security forces that an abandoned car was found in the Bekaa valley, not far from the Syrian border, in which there were five Czech passports, some valuables and credit cards.
The Daily Star wrote that the police, alerted by a taxi driver’s father, found baggage with the five Czechs’ personal effects in an abandoned taxi car.
Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said the Foreign Ministry is dealing with the case of the missing Czechs intensively. Its emergency team met this afternoon to check all available information,” Sobotka said.
“I’m in contact with Minister Zaoralek and I can guarantee that the Czech government would do its utmost to help the Czech citizens,” Sobotka said.
The taxi, whose driver has also disappeared, was found 300 metres away from a military checkpoint near Kefraya, a town in the western part of the Bekaa valley.
In the car, the police found Czech and Lebanese currency, some euros and three video cameras that probably belong to the Czechs, The Daily Star wrote.
The Czech server iDnes.cz cites Lebanese media as mentioning a possible link between the disappearance of the Czechs and the arrest of three suspected aides of terrorists in Prague last year. The three are waiting in Czech custody for being extradited to the USA, where they may face a life sentence.
The taxi driver who transferred the Czechs reportedly comes from the same village in Lebanon as Ali Fayad, one of the suspects arrested in Prague, iDnes.cz writes.
Fayad has the citizenship of Lebanon and Ukraine. The other two suspects are Khaled Marabi and Faouzi Jaber, from Ivory Coast. They are suspected of planning to smuggle cocaine from Colombia to the USA and use the proceeds from its sale to buy weapons for FARC terrorists to attack the allied units in Colombia.
A Lebanese source told iDnes.cz that the Lebanese intelligence service has already started negotiating with the kidnappers.
Lagronova would not comment on these speculations and said the ministry would not give detailed information about the missing persons either.
She only said the Lebanese military is searching for them.
Czech diplomacy is contact with the Lebanese government and security forces, Lagronova said.
She the ministry’s previous recommendation that Czechs should not travel to Lebanon is still valid. If they have to go there, they should register themselves in DROZD, a voluntary database of travellers.
The five Czechs in Lebanon were not registered in the database, she added.
The police have sealed off the site where the car was found and have launched search for the missing persons, the paper wrote.
According to the Lebanese police, the Czechs visited Lebanon twice in the past few months. First, they entered the country on May 15. They left on July 1 and arrived again a week later.
In March 2011, seven Estonian bikers went missing in the Bekaa valley under similar circumstances.
They spent 113 days in captivity before being liberated by an intervention of the Lebanese special forces. Their jailers reportedly claimed adherence to the Al-Qaeda terrorist network.
rtj/mr
