Lebanon asks Syria to hand over two Syrians in the killing of Iraqi MP Ahmed Al-Alwani

Lebanese authorities have asked Syria to hand over two Syrians suspected of involvement in the killing of former Iraqi MP Ahmed Al-Alwani, whose body was found in an apartment in Beirut earlier this week.

A Lebanese judicial source told AFP that preliminary indications suggest Al-Alwani was strangled, and that the perpetrators of the crime and its motive remain unclear. He added that investigators from the Lebanese public prosecutor's office asked Damascus to arrest the two Syrians and hand them over, that their identities have not yet been determined, and that a Lebanese citizen has been arrested and is being interrogated.

The same source said the preliminary investigation had uncovered a financial dimension.

Lebanon's National News Agency said that the Public Prosecutor of Cassation, Judge Ahmed Rami Al-Hajj, is personally following the investigation into Al-Alwani's killing, which is being carried out by the Information Branch of the Internal Security Forces.

The body had been found on Tuesday evening in an apartment in the Tariq Al-Jadida neighborhood of Beirut, according to what Lebanese media reported.

The head of Iraq's Security Media Cell, Major General Saad Maan, who is following the investigation in Lebanon, told the Iraqi News Agency that Al-Alwani arrived in Beirut from Erbil airport on a Middle East Airlines flight on the evening of November 5, and was taken to a hotel. He added that Al-Alwani left the hotel less than an hour after checking in, telling reception staff that he was going out with friends, and that these friends were speaking in a Syrian dialect. The agency reported that he left in a white Range Rover, and then made two calls to his relatives in Iraq before contact with him was cut off.

In a separate case, the public prosecutor's media office announced that the Information Branch of the Internal Security Forces is interrogating five Hezbollah members arrested in the Batroun highlands in northern Lebanon.

Iraqi President Nizar Amedi called for a swift investigation to determine the circumstances of the crime and to uncover its perpetrators, after meeting Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in Turkey on Wednesday.

Al-Alwani, a native of Ramadi in the heart of Sunni Anbar, represented Anbar province in the Iraqi parliament and rose to prominence during the 2012 and 2013 protests against the government of then-prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki. He was one of the harshest critics of Iranian influence in Baghdad. He was arrested in December 2013 during a security raid on his home in Ramadi in which his brother and others were killed, and was sentenced to death in 2014 on "terrorism" charges, then released in April 2024 under the general amnesty law after more than a decade in prison.

Iraq's ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammed Reda Al-Husseini, said on Tuesday that the embassy is following the case closely and is awaiting the final report from the Lebanese security agencies to uncover the circumstances of the crime.