BAGHDAD (The Thursday Times) — The body of Ahmed al-Alwani, a former Iraqi MP found strangled in a Beirut apartment this week, was flown home to Baghdad on Saturday, as Lebanese investigators sought two Syrian suspects who are believed to have fled across the border.
Al-Alwani’s coffin, wrapped in the Iraqi flag, was received at Baghdad International Airport by relatives, Sunni political leaders, and other mourners. Crowds also gathered in his home province of Anbar to see the coffin pass.
Lebanon’s prosecutor general, Judge Ahmad Rami al-Hajj, authorised the release of the body to the Iraqi embassy in Beirut at the family’s request once medical and forensic examinations were complete, the embassy said. It said his identity had been confirmed by comparing DNA from the body with a sample from his son, and that the family would receive a copy of the forensic report.
Three suspects
Initial forensic findings showed that al-Alwani, 57, had been struck on the head and strangled. His body was found on Tuesday evening in an apartment in Beirut’s Tariq al-Jdideh district, after his family told the Iraqi embassy they had not heard from him for four days.
Lebanese authorities have identified three suspects. A Lebanese national has been arrested and is being questioned, while two Syrians are believed to have crossed into Syria after the killing. Beirut has asked Damascus to arrest and hand them over. The investigation is being run by the Information Branch of Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces, under the prosecutor general’s supervision.
Iraqi officials have pieced together his last movements. Al-Alwani flew into Beirut from Erbil on the evening of November 5 and was driven to a hotel, which he left less than an hour after checking in, telling reception staff he was going out with friends, according to Lieutenant General Saad Maan, head of Iraq’s Security Media Cell. Hotel staff told investigators that the men with him spoke with Syrian accents. He left in a white Range Rover and made two calls to relatives in Iraq before contact with him was lost.
Motive still unclear
Investigators have not established a motive, and Lebanese officials say they have reached no conclusions. A judicial source has said the early inquiry points to a financial angle, but the killing has fuelled speculation in Iraq that it was a political assassination. Iraq’s president, Nizar Amedi, has called for a swift investigation, and Baghdad is sending a team to help. Mohammed Ridha al-Husseini, Iraq’s ambassador in Beirut, said the two countries were co-ordinating on the case.
Al-Alwani, from Ramadi, was a leading figure in the Sunni protests against the Baghdad government in 2012 and 2013, and an outspoken critic of Iranian influence in Iraq and of Iran-backed armed groups. He was arrested in late 2013, sentenced to death on terrorism-related charges the following year, and freed in 2025 after more than a decade in prison.
