NOW Lebanon Report: Bassil’s withholding of data delayed Khansa release
A Lebanese source on Saturday uncovered that the withholding of data by Telecommunications Minister Gebran Bassil from the official security authorities was a major cause for the delay in freeing Amin al Khansa, a 14 year-old who was kidnapped on Monday for a ransom of $1.5 million.
The source added that Bassil’s withholding of data bothered concerned parties. The source also cited an incident from 2005 when security forces were able to free a young boy called Karim Hatem al-Daher within 18 hours of his kidnapping after the telecom ministry handed over the data related to the mobile calls.
The source said that Hezbollah was keen to end the kidnapping; however it refrained from offering any assistance to the security services. According to the source, Bassil only turned the data over when the head of the Ghobeiri municipality Mohammad Said al-Khansa, a relative of the kidnapped boy, intervened with the Telecom Ministry. Bassil responded and offered the needed data two days after the kidnapping, and the rest of data was only offered by the second cellular network company after the boy was freed.