Authorities say 42-year-old Bassam al-Sheikh Hussein walked into a Federal Bank branch with a shotgun and a gasoline can and threatened to set himself on fire if he wasn’t allowed to withdraw his money. He took up to 10 bank employees and customers hostage and fired three warning shots, an official said. After hours of negotiations, he accepted an offer from the bank to take part of his savings, according to local media and a group of depositors involved in the talks. He then released his hostages and surrendered. Dozens of protesters gathered in the city’s bustling Hamra district during the standoff, chanting slogans against the Lebanese government and banks, hoping the gunman would take his savings. Some bystanders hailed him as a hero. Image: The man talks to the negotiators behind the iron bars of the bank Hussein was stuck with $210,000 (£171,000) in the bank and was struggling to withdraw money to pay his father’s medical bills, said Hassan Moghnieh, who as head of the advocacy group Association of Depositors in Lebanon was involved in the negotiations. The country’s cash-strapped banks have imposed strict limits on withdrawals of foreign currency assets, freezing the savings of millions of people. Lebanon is suffering from the worst economic crisis in its modern history. Three quarters of the population have been plunged into poverty and the Lebanese pound has depreciated more than 90% against the US dollar. “What has led us to this situation is the failure of the state to resolve this financial crisis and the actions of the banks and the Central Bank, where people can only recover some of their own money as if it were a weekly allowance,” said Dina Abu Zor, a lawyer. with the Depositors Union advocacy group among the protesters. “And that led to people taking matters into their own hands.”
