Estonian kidnappers handed to military judge

The army intelligence arrested on Tuesday a Lebanese national linked to the 2011 Estonian kidnapping, reported the National News Agency on Thursday.

It said that Mohammed Toufic Hujairi confessed to providing shelter and food to the kidnappers and their captives in exchange for money.

He also confessed to helping one of the abductors escape Lebanon through providing him with a fake passport. The suspect was arrested with some drugs in his possession.

Investigations are underway in order to arrest the rest of those involved in the kidnapping. The seven Estonian cyclists were kidnapped in Lebanon in March 2011 as they entered the country from Syria.

They were abducted in the eastern Bekaa and kept in captivity in Lebanon and Syria until July of that year.

Wael Abbas, the suspected ringleader in the abduction, was arrested in November 2011. He was detained by Syrian security forces as he was attempting to escape to the country through a false ID.

In September, the Internal Security Forces killed two accomplices of the alleged mastermind behind the kidnapping during clashes in the area of al-Bireh in Rashaya.

Later that month, two Intelligence Branch officers were injured when they were ambushed by armed men in the hunt for the kidnappers in the village of Jlala near Shtaura.