Beyond the assassination

Shortly before 3pm last Friday afternoon the sun was getting in Eli Abujawdeh’s eyes. After ignoring it for a few minutes, he surrendered to irritation and stood up to close the blinds, a decision that could well have saved his life. Returning to his desk, he shuffled some papers and carried on working before an almighty blast threw him onto the floor. “The whole glass of the window shattered and I was only a few feet away. Because the blind was closed I was ok, but if it had been a few minutes earlier I could have been really badly injured,” he said. Takreem Initiatives, the company for which Abujawdeh is the marketing executive, is based in the Asco Center, an 11-storey building only 100 meters from the epicenter of the car bomb that ripped through Ashrafieh, killing Lebanese intelligence chief Wissam al-Hassan. Casualty reports initially stated eight civilians had