Iraqi ex-lawmaker found strangled to death in Beirut
A former member of the Iraqi parliament who spent over a decade in prison in his home country was found dead in a Beirut apartment days after arriving in Lebanon, Lebanese security and judicial officials said Tuesday.
The officials said Ahmed al-Alwani arrived in Beirut flying in from the northern Iraqi city of Irbil five days ago. Al-Alwani had reserved a room at a hotel in Beirut's commercial Hamra district, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The officials said that al-Alwani moved shortly afterward into an apartment in Beirut's Tariq al-Jedideh neighborhood that was rented for two days for $200 by two Syrians and a Lebanese national.
When the real estate agent tried to reach al-Alwani after the two days passed, the man did not answer, said the four security and two judicial officials.
On Monday night, a police force entered the apartment and found al-Alwani dead after being hit on the head then strangled.
The officials said police intelligence is questioning the taxi driver who picked up al-Alwani from the airport and a search is ongoing for the men who rented the apartment.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported that the country's public prosecutor, Judge Ahmad Rami al-Haj, is following the investigation into the killing.
Al-Alwani, a Sunni Muslim, was arrested in Iraq in December 2013 after being sought on terrorism charges for inciting violence against the Shiite-led government.
Al-Alwani's brother, five guards and two troops were killed in an exchange of fire with security forces when his entourage resisted the arrest in the city of Ramadi in Iraq's western province of Anbar.
Al-Alwani was released in Iraq in April last year.
Judicial officials told AFP that surveillance cameras showed him "voluntarily arriving with two other people at the building where his body was found."
Thd officials added that the suspects had taken Alwani from the airport to his hotel when he arrived in Beirut last week.