BAALBEK, Lebanon: The man who snatched a teenage girl from a schoolyard playground in east Lebanon earlier this week intends to marry her, local sources told The Daily Star Friday.
Mahdi Nazha, in his 30s, brought three masked gunmen with him to a public school in the village of al-Ain and abducted 17-year-old Lilian Houri from the playground Wednesday over what were unclear motives.
But Friday sources said the man, from the nearby village of Nabi Othman, wanted the girl's hand in marriage, and is seeking to "negotiate" a deal with her parents.
The sources said Nazha was in love with Houri, but that the girl had shown no interest in marrying him, and that her parents had completely rejected the union.
Relatives of the captor had planned Thursday to meet with the Houris “to negotiate a deal,” but the girl's family refused to see them unless they brought their daughter back.
Residents of al-Ain and the schoolgirl's classmates demonstrated Friday morning around 6:30 a.m. near the school to call for her release.
A security source told The Daily Star that the Army raided Nazha’s house in Nabi Othman, but the man had escaped with his hostage to an unknown destination.
Houri’s family has refused to talk to the media over the girl's kidnapping.
A teacher close to the Houri family had told The Daily Star that the family intended to stage a retaliatory kidnapping by abducting a child from the Nazha family.
However, no one from the Nazha family attended school on Thursday, he added.
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