Baalbeck (Lebanon): A Lebanese sheikh staged
his own kidnapping allegedly in a desperate bid to secure a
ransom and repay debts, a security official and his neighbours
said on Friday.
Police arrested Sheikh Mohammed Majzoub, the prayer
leader at a Sunni Muslim mosque in the town of Majdel Anjar,
for "plotting a fictional kidnapping," the official told agency
on condition of anonymity.
Majzoub's car had been found late Tuesday with its engine
still running and hazard lights flashing on a side road of the
town located in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley.
His white turban was found lying on the ground in a
nearby street.
But police found Majzoub, who is in his 20s, in a house
near Majdel Anjar yesterday, with his beard and and hair
shaven off but otherwise unharmed.
The cleric's neighbours told AFP the young sheikh had
been having financial troubles and in debt.
His "kidnapping" had prompted a major search operation in
the eastern Bekaa, where sectarian ties are tense between
Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
Urging residents to remain calm, parliamentarians and
officials had met with the Lebanon's grand mufti -- the
country's highest ranking Sunni cleric -- and called on the
police to find the sheikh immediately to preserve "civil
peace."
The sheikh was now being grilled by investigators, said
the security official.
PTI
First Published: Friday, January 29, 2010, 22:09