Hostage to be ‘released’

BEIRUT

Lebanese General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim has informed Prime Minister Najib Miqati that a Turkish national kidnapped by an unknown group will be released very soon, according to Lebanese daily An Nahar.

The daily said that the Turkish man, Abdulbasit Aslan, who was kidnapped last month, would be handed over to the Lebanese General Security either yesterday or today. He will then be accompanied by a European man of Syrian origin to Turkey, Naharnet website reported.

Another Turkish businessman, Aydın Tufan Tekin, who has been kidnapped by al-Meqdad clan, is still being held by the family’s military wing, despite claims that it had lost contact with the party holding the man following an army raid on a southern neighborhood of Beirut.