Officials release Beirut gunman after bank drops charges

By KAREEM CHEHAYEB
Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s state prosecutor has released a man who took up to 10 people hostage in a bank at gunpoint while demanding funds from his locked savings account. In a case that has drawn nationwide attention, food delivery driver Bassam al-Sheikh Hussein, 42, fired three warning shots from a shotgun last Thursday at a Federal Bank branch in Beirut. He threatened to douse himself with gasoline and set himself ablaze if the bank didn’t let him withdraw his $210,000 in savings for his father’s medical bills. He was allowed to withdraw $35,000. Hussein was released after he went on a hunger strike and the bank dropped charges.