CRIMINALS IN LEBANON BEWARE: YOU ARE ON CANDID CAMERA
Ya Libnan, Lebanon
Sept 18 2005
Beirut, Lebanon – Police investigators are focusing on a film taken
by a security camera of a bank at the scene of the Jeitawi bombing
in Ashrafiyeh to pin down the identity of two suspects seen planting
two bags of explosives in between parked cars near a coffee shop that
took the brunt of the explosion’s impact, An Nahar reported on Sunday.
Witnesses have told the police that they saw the two bag carriers
climbing out of a private car driven by a third man. The same car
returned to pick them up and raced off after explosives were placed
on target, according to An Nahar.
Investigators hope to establish the identity of the bombers and their
car driver from the film that was taken off the security camera of
a Byblos Bank branch overlooking the scene of the blast that rocked
Jeitawi’s St. Louis alleyway five minutes before midnight.
The owner of the cafe, a Lebanese Armenian in his sixties, was killed
in the blast and a total of 28 people were injured. Police said Sunday
that only three of the wounded people remained hospitalized and the
rest were given quick first aid treatment and discharged.
Residents of the densely populated stricken street in a Christian
neighborhood of the Lebanese capital are still taking stock of the
damage caused by the explosions to their homes and businesses.
Beirut’s municipality launched a fund-raising campaign to help
residents to repair the damage.
An official statement said the first $100,000 donation came from
Sheikh Jassem Mohammed Al Bahr, reportedly a Kuwaiti citizen. The
City Council has decided to extend an initial aid of $500 to every
victim pending a survey of the damage by Lebanon’s Higher Relief Board.
It was the 8th such bombing since March 19. Anti-Syrian politicians
blamed the new attack, like the previous bombings, on Syria’s secret
service and allied Lebanese intelligence operatives. But Hezbollah,
which strongly condemned the Jeitawi blast as a terrorist act of
destabilization, publicly warned against handing down prejudgments.
The filming of the suspects is a message to future criminals that they
can no longer expect to get away so easily. The Lebanese are determined
to find out the truth about who is behind all these criminal acts in
Lebanon and bring to Justice all these criminals.
To those criminals contemplating similar actions in the future,
we may say: “Watch out! You are on Candid Camera”