A man working in a delivery service on his motorbike, in a street of Beirut. (Credit: L'Orient-Le Jour)
In response to a surge in thefts, assaults and murders committed in the Metn area by individuals posing as delivery drivers, Razi al-Hajj, a Lebanese Forces MP from Metn, asked the public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, Jamal Hajjar, to open a judicial information notice to identify and sanction the perpetrators of these crimes, which are creating an alarming climate of insecurity.
The request was transmitted by Judge Hajjar to the Internal Security Forces (ISF) Intelligence Department, said Hajj's lawyer, César al-Khoury, when contacted by L’Orient-Le Jour.
Among the crimes that have recently caused the greatest outcry is the murder of a man in his 70s in his home in Jisr al-Basha, near the Mkalles roundabout (Metn), by a man disguised as a delivery driver.
The murder took place in broad daylight in mid-January. Surveillance camera footage showed the helmeted criminal, dressed in black and carrying a delivery box, exiting the elevator and knocking on the victim's door. Armed with a sharp object, he forced his way into the apartment and killed the victim in order to rob him.
Khoury claims more generally that "dozens of men" seem to have organized themselves into "gangs" to carry out their misdeeds. "They are watching the roads and residences, particularly targeting homes where elderly people live," the lawyer said.
He also refers to testimonies from shop owners and professionals working in Metn, who report having noticed that "many people, most of whom do not display any company, delivery service or restaurant identification, spend long hours on their motorcycles in the same neighborhoods, as if they are monitoring certain places, homes and businesses."
According to complaints from residents of the affected neighborhoods collected by Hajj, "several of these individuals repeatedly travel the same streets, stop for a time, and then resume new suspicious rounds."
