LBCI reveals escape of Abbas Choueib from kidnappers for hours

On Wednesday 25th of July, during the evening, and while LBCI was broadcasting live from the house of one of the hostages, one of the family members received a message on his mobile phone from a Syrian number, where the sender introduced himself as Abbas Choueib.          
In the message, Choueib called on relatives to help in releasing them. Choueib escaped from the place where he was held with the other hostages near the Turkish border, succeeded in jumping over the fence and ran for hours in an arid area.            

After stealing the mobile phone from one of the guards, Choueib remained in contact with his relatives for four hours. He repeated his call for contacting the Lebanese government which he sees falling short in negotiation with the competent authorities.               

Meanwhile, the relatives called Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour and informed him of Abbas’ escape.    

In turn, Mansour called the Lebanese consul to Turkey and gave him the phone number from which Abbas have been calling. The consul called Choueib and told him that he will give his number to the Turkish intelligence to locate him.                 

However, Abbas Choueib, who waited for the Turkish intelligence for hours, did not answer the calls at around 3:30 in the morning.             
Since then, no one ever heard anything from him, until the media managed to contact him and the rest of the hostages on Sunday 29th of August through the head of the kidnapping group known as Abou Ibrahim.