Charles Yacoub is a Lebanese-Canadian

Lebanese-Canadian

Lebanese Canadians are Canadian nationals of Lebanese origin. There are according to the 2006 Census some 165,150 Canadians of Lebanese origin, making them by far the largest group of people with Arabic-speaking roots....

 who hijacked a Greyhound bus and drove it to Parliament Hill

Parliament Hill

Parliament Hill , colloquially known as The Hill, is an area of Crown land on the southern banks of the Ottawa River in downtown Ottawa, Ontario. Its Gothic revival suite of buildingsthe parliament buildings serves as the home of the Parliament of Canada and contains a number of architectural...

 in Ottawa

Ottawa

Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 in 1989. The eight hour hostage taking resulted in no casualties, but was a notable incident of domestic terrorism in Canada.

Life

Yacoub was born in Lebanon and moved to Canada in 1976. He settled in the Repentigny

Repentigny, Quebec

Repentigny is an off-island suburb of Montreal, in the province of Quebec, located north of Montreal, on the lower end of the L'Assomption River and on the Saint Lawrence River. Repentigny and Charlemagne are the first towns off the island of Montreal.-History:...

 suburb of Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, became the owner of a jewellery store, and married and had two children.

Hostagetaking

On April 7, 1989, Yacoub boarded a Greyhound bus that was traveling from Montreal to New York. At 12:20 pm on the Champlain Bridge, just outside of Montreal, Yacoub brandished a .45 calibre semi-automatic handgun. He held the gun to the head of driver Roger Bednarchuk and ordered him to drive to Ottawa. He also held a device which he claimed would detonate a bomb hidden in the back of the bus, though no bomb was eventually found. There were nine other passengers on the bus. At the bridge toll booth he released Rene Coupal, a former police officer, who then alerted the authorities.

Yacoub was a Lebanese-Christian and claimed to represent the Christian Lebanese Liberation Front, though all later evidence indicated he worked alone. He was upset by the Lebanese Civil War

Lebanese Civil War

The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted civil war in Lebanon. The war lasted from 1975 to 1990 and resulted in an estimated 150,000 to 230,000 civilian fatalities. Another one million people were wounded, and today approximately 350,000 people remain displaced. There was also a mass exodus of...

 and demanded that Syria remove its forces from the country. He later said that his goal in the event was to draw attention to the situation in Lebanon.

The Sûreté du Québec

Sûreté du Québec

Sûreté du Québec or SQ is the provincial police force for the Canadian province of Québec...

 began to search for the bus, but could not find it believing it was still continuing south. They did not alert the Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...

 or Ontario Provincial Police

Ontario Provincial Police

The Ontario Provincial Police is the Provincial Police service for the province of Ontario, Canada.-Overview:The OPP is the the largest deployed police force in Ontario, and the second largest in Canada. The service is responsible for providing policing services throughout the province in areas...

 who were caught unaware when it arrived in Ottawa around 2:45. The bus arrived in Ottawa and Yacoub ordered it driven up to Parliament Hill, which was then open to public vehicles. The bus then proceeded onto the lawn of the Parliament Buildings where it became stuck in the spring mud. A long hostage standoff began with Yacoub gradually releasing hostages. Over the course of the event he fired three shots into the ground, though he never threatened to harm the hostages. The parliament was evacuated, and police surrounded the bus. The event, unfolding for hours in the centre of the nation's capital, became a major media story covered live by the country's networks. At 7:55 Yacoub released the remaining five hostages and exited the bus where he was taken into custody.

Yacoub faced five charges, and went to trial in 1990. He was convicted of forcible confinement and use of a weapon to commit an offence, but in a surprise to many was acquitted of the more serious charges of hostage

Hostage

A hostage is a person or entity which is held by a captor. The original definition meant that this was handed over by one of two belligerent parties to the other or seized as security for the carrying out of an agreement, or as a preventive measure against certain acts of war...

 taking, intimidation of Parliament

Intimidation of Parliament

Intimidation of Parliament is an obscure criminal law in Canada that makes it a crime to violently intimidate the Parliament of Canada and the provincial legislatures. The maximum sentence is fourteen years...

, and aggravated assault. While he could have faced life in prison, he was sentenced to only six years in prison.