JEDDAH/BEIRUT: Lebanese security authorities released Sunday a Saudi man whose kidnapping for ransom three days ago was only revealed hours earlier by the Saudi embassy in Beirut. “The embassy is currently conducting procedures to welcome him and ensure his return to the Kingdom,” said Ali Asiri, the Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon. Asiri, who refrained from giving further details of the operations, had told Okaz/Saudi Gazette only hours earlier that relatives of the kidnapped man informed his embassy of the incident three days ago by telephone, having themselves received a call from the victim via his Saudi-registered mobile phone. Asiri said the victim had been in contact with relatives in short, sporadic phone calls in which he told them that a ransom demand had been set at $120,000. The ambassador said he had asked the Lebanese authorities for information on the precise location of the kidnapping, adding that “it could have occurred in the capital itself or outside”. The kidnapping victim, he added, was from Hafr Al-Batin and had gone on holiday to Lebanon one week ago.
