Crimeupdated 26m ago3 min read
MapLebanese Officials Say Former Iraqi MP Ahmed Al-Alwani Was Strangled in Beirut Apartment
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Ahmed al-Alwani, former Iraqi MP, was found dead in a Beirut apartment. Lebanese authorities opened a homicide investigation and assigned a special judge.
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Strangled in Beirut
Lebanese security and judicial officials said former Iraqi parliament member Ahmed al-Alwani was found dead in a Beirut apartment days after arriving in Lebanon, and the officials said police entered the apartment on Monday night and found him after he was hit on the head then strangled. Al Arabiya said sources told it that the security services found the body of the former lawmaker on Monday night and confirmed his identity on Tuesday, and it said preliminary findings indicate that he was strangled in the apartment. AP said officials reported that al-Alwani arrived in Beirut flying in from the northern Iraqi city of Irbil five days earlier and reserved a room at a hotel in Beirut’s commercial Hamra district.
AP said al-Alwani moved shortly afterward into an apartment in Beirut’s Tariq Jadida neighborhood that was rented for two days for $200 by two Syrians and a Lebanese national, and it said a search was ongoing for the men who rented the apartment. Al Arabiya said authorities arrested one of three suspects and were looking for two Syrians still at large, and it said the suspects had taken Alwani from the airport to his hotel when he arrived in Beirut last week.
Investigation and suspects
The BBC said Iraqi ambassador to Beirut Muhammad Reza al-Husayni announced that the Lebanese judiciary opened an investigation into the killing of former Iraqi deputy Ahmed Alwanī and tasked a special judge to follow up on the circumstances. The BBC also said the Public Prosecutor at the Lebanese Discriminating Court requested a DNA test to conclusively determine whether the body belongs to Alwanī. AP said Lebanese officials reported that police intelligence was questioning the taxi driver who picked up al-Alwani from the airport and that a search was ongoing for the men who rented the apartment.
Al Arabiya said a judicial official told AFP that one of three suspects had been arrested and that authorities were looking for two Syrians still at large. Al-Monitor said the circumstances surrounding the death of al-Alwani are under investigation, and it said Iraqi ambassador Mohammed Redha al-Husseini told the official Iraqi News Agency that Baghdad is awaiting the report from Lebanese authorities regarding the circumstances of his death.
Background and next steps
AP said al-Alwani was a Sunni Muslim who was arrested in Iraq in December 2013 after being sought on terrorism charges for inciting violence against the Shiite-led government, and it said he was released in Iraq in April last year. Al Arabiya said al-Alwani was sentenced to death in Iraq in 2014 for the murder of two soldiers, but was ultimately released from prison last year, and it said he came from a prominent Sunni tribe fighting ISIS militants in the western province of Al-Anbar. Al-Monitor said al-Alwani was a prominent leader of anti-government protests by Iraqi Sunnis in 2013 and that his body was discovered in Beirut Tuesday evening, with authorities later declaring him deceased.
The BBC said the Iraqi embassy in Beirut is in touch with the Lebanese security agencies to follow up on the circumstances of Alwanī’s death and that it was awaiting the final report from the Lebanese security agencies to reveal the crime’s details. Al Arabiya said surveillance cameras showed him “voluntarily arriving with two other people at the building where his body was found,” and it said the investigation preliminary findings indicate he was strangled in the apartment.