Charges Dropped: Lebanon Man Held Bank Staff Hostage Over Trapped Savings

    Lebanon: An official said the man has since been released but still faces possible charges. (File)

Beirut: After charges against a Lebanese man were dropped, he was freed from detention after holding bank employees hostage last week in order to seek access to his trapped savings.

Bassam al-Sheikh Hussein, who entered a Federal Bank branch in Beirut with a weapon, was ordered to be released by Judge Ghassan al-Khoury after the bank withdrew its accusations against him, according to a report from the state-run National News Agency on Tuesday.

According to a legal official who spoke to AFP on Wednesday, Hussein has since been released but is still subject to potential state charges.

Last Thursday, following an hour-long struggle, Hussein surrendered after the bank permitted him to withdraw $30,000 from his more than $200,000 in frozen savings, according to media sources.

According to state media, he made the dramatic decision to use his savings in order to pay for his father's surgery.

The event was the most recent between furious depositors who couldn't access their frozen savings since 2019 and Lebanese banks.

Many in Lebanon, who hold the political and banking elite responsible for the nation's financial crisis, which the World Bank has dubbed one of the worst in recent times, have welcomed Hussein as a hero.

In a report this month, the World Bank blamed authorities for misusing and misspending people's deposits over the past 30 years, accusing them of a "Ponzi" scheme approach to public finance that benefited key political and economic actors at the expense of regular depositors.

"The government consistently and acutely departed from orderly and disciplined fiscal policy to serve the larger purpose of cementing political economy interests," it said, calling the economic crisis a "deliberate depression."