Villa of Omar Hayssam in Nehoiu looted after Syrian terrorist's escape
Following Omar Hayssam's escape, the Foresta Nehoiu timber mill and associated villas were systematically looted by locals. Equipment worth millions of euros disappeared, sold for next to nothing.
What remains of Omar Hayssam's "principality" in Nehoiu
Before definitively disappearing from Buzău County, Omar Hayssam used to declare that the beautiful areas he controlled "needed a prince" to run them. Gândul reports that following the Syrian terrorist's escape, the villas and equipment at the Foresta Nehoiu timber mill were systematically looted.
In the early 2000s, Hayssam was one of Romania's most influential businessmen. He had taken over Foresta Nehoiu — a factory employing approximately 3,000 workers — and also managed the Bucovina mineral water brand. In the meantime, he had also acquired Romanian citizenship.
Although several criminal cases had been opened in his name for various frauds, it was the terrorism file that destroyed his rise. In 2005, Hayssam facilitated the movement of a Romanian journalist team to Iraq, after which he orchestrated their kidnapping together with a terrorist group.
In Nehoiu, alongside his own villa, Syrian Nasta Bassam, Hayssam's trusted man and accomplice in the process of bankrupting the factory, also owned an imposing residence.
According to judicial sources cited by Gândul, the factory sprawled across approximately 10 hectares and possessed equipment valued at millions of euros, including a railway line for freight trains. Timber dryers for furniture, capable of simultaneously handling 80 cubic metres of timber, were sold at night for 5,000 euros each, although their real value reached up to 70,000 euros.
Gândul's sources specified that locals tore up the railway line and took it to scrap metal collection centres. The villa in which Nasta Bassam had lived with his family was looted and subsequently sold by the state. The buyer was reportedly a priest from a neighbouring locality, Păltineni, who paid the sum of 30,000 euros.
The property, however, required extensive renovation: the parquet had been torn up, the roof destroyed, and the heating system stolen. Because of missing roof elements, the walls had become mouldy, so the new owner was reportedly forced to invest an additional considerable sum.
The house in which Omar Hayssam himself had lived was reportedly purchased, in turn, by a businessman from Buzău.
Source: Gândul