Man raids bank to get his own money

A man who held up a bank to withdraw his own money has been hailed as a hero by Lebanese furious at being prevented from accessing their savings amid a financial collapse.

Abdallah Assaii is accused of holding seven staff hostage at a bank in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley last week, dousing them in petrol and threatening to set them alight unless they gave him US$50,000 from his account.

Lebanese banks introduced informal capital controls to restrict withdrawals in late 2019 to prevent bank runs. Since then, depositors with U.S. dollar accounts have only been able to withdraw small amounts in Lebanese pounds at an exchange rate far below market value.

With 80 per cent of the population without at least one essential service, such as public utilities or health care, many Lebanese excused Assaii, with members of his community saying the 37-year-old needed money to pay for stock at his café after a robbery.

“He didn’t steal the money. It was his,” said an NGO worker from Assaii’s home town.

Many Lebanese say the country’s leaders are to blame for the worsening economic situation.

“If people want their rights they should go to the banks’ main offices and to politicians. They are behind what’s happening,” said one of the staff taken hostage by Assaii.

That view is shared by the World Bank, which yesterday excoriated Lebanon’s leadership for failing to address the meltdown for over two years.

“Lebanon’s deliberate depression is orchestrated by the country’s elite that has long captured the state and lived off its economic rents,” the global lender said.

Since the end of the civil war in the 1990s, Lebanon’s economy has been based on unsustainably high debt, with the country attracting foreign capital by offering high interest rates, funded by more borrowing.

The World Bank said the crisis had cut the country’s gross domestic product by nearly 60 per cent since 2019.

Government revenues collapsed by almost half in 2021 to reach 6.6 per cent of GDP, the lowest ratio globally after Somalia and Yemen, the bank said.

While Assaii was arrested, in the confusion he was reportedly able to pass the money to his wife, who remains at large.