Prague, July 30 (CTK) – The police have posted in the Internet database of missing persons the photos of five Czechs who went missing in Lebanon in mid-July, iDnes.cz server said Thursday, adding that the kidnapping can now be investigated in the Czech Republic.
Until now, the kidnapping could only be investigated by secret services abroad.
The names of the five men were previously released by the media.
The five men went missing in Lebanon on July 18 when the local police found a car with their documents.
The Lebanese media speculated that their kidnapping may be connected with the case of Ali Fayad, who was arrested in the Czech Republic last year and who is a brother of a man who disappeared along with the Czechs.
One of them is Jan Svarac, Fayad’s lawyer. Another man is Martin Psik, a soldier who participated in the foreign mission in Afghanistan and who was to allegedly look after the men’s security.
Adam Homsi, who visited Lebanon previously and who speaks a few languages, accompanied the group as a translator. Miroslav Dobes and Pavel Kofron, television reports from Jindrichuv Hradec, south Bohemia, reported on Fayad’s case in the past and now, they wanted to make a document on the situation in refugee camps.
Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek plans to go to Lebanon. A decision on his trip is to be made by the weekend. In Beirut, he is to meet his Lebanese counterpart Gibran Bassil.
Members of Czech security forces may accompany Zaoralek in order to exchange information on the case with their Lebanese colleagues.
Two Czech experts from the secret services are already operating in Lebanon, gathering information on the spot and fine-tuning further procedure in the case with local intelligence services.
The car and belongings of the five Czechs were found in the dangerous Bekaa Valley not far from the Syrian border. Fayad’s family has dismissed any connection of the case with Fayad.
Lebanese Interior Minister Nuhad al-Mashnuq said last week the case has a criminal background and that the disappearance of the Czechs is connected with mafias and drug and weapons smuggling.
Fayad was detained in the Czech Republic in April 2014 along with two men on suspicion of a planned sale of weapons and cocaine to U.S. agents who pretended being members of the Colombian FARC organisation. The three are waiting for being extradited to the United States.
Fayad’s lawyer told the Prague Municipal Court last December that Fayad works for Lebanon’s military intelligence service. He said Fayad should be released because he acted as an agent.
State attorney Renata Rychnovska reacted saying neither the Czech Republic nor Poland, where meetings with U.S. agents allegedly took place, knew about Fayad’s activities as an agent and allowed them.
Fayad himself defended himself saying that in his position of an employee of a Ukrainian state company trading in arms, he was contacted by another accused, Faouzi Jaber who presented himself as an adviser to the Ivory Coast president. Lebanese agents allegedly assigned Fayad to find out as much information about him as possible.
