BEIRUT, November 11 (Aalimi Nation) – Lebanese authorities are treating the death of Ahmed al-Alwani, a former Iraqi lawmaker, as a killing after his body was found in an apartment in the Tariq al-Jdideh area of Beirut this week. Officials say one suspect has been arrested and two others are being sought.
A Lebanese judicial official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said security services found the body on Monday night and confirmed his identity on Tuesday. Preliminary findings, the official said, indicate that he was strangled. His family had reported him missing to the Lebanese authorities.
Lebanon's top prosecutor, Judge Ahmed Rami al-Hajj, is personally overseeing the case, and the Information Branch of the Internal Security Forces is conducting the investigation, according to Lebanese officials.
According to the judicial official, a Lebanese national suspected of involvement has been arrested, while two Syrian suspects remain at large. The official said the suspects collected Alwani from the airport and took him to his hotel after he arrived in Beirut last week. Surveillance cameras, the official added, showed him arriving "voluntarily with two other people at the building where his body was found."
The motive for the killing has not been established and the investigation is at an early stage, and authorities have not publicly named any individual or group behind it. Several details, including how the suspects knew Alwani and why he travelled to Lebanon, remain unconfirmed.
Alwani's office called the death an "assassination" and a "treacherous crime" in a statement on X. "Whoever is behind it, no one is above accountability," it said.
Iraq's Ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammed Reda al-Husseini, said on Tuesday that the embassy is following the case closely. He said it is awaiting the final report from Lebanese security agencies so that the circumstances of the crime can be disclosed.
Alwani is a Sunni politician who represented Anbar province in Iraq's parliament. He became widely known during the 2012-2013 protests against the government of then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which demonstrators accused of sectarian policies.
He was arrested in December 2013 during a security raid on his home in Ramadi, in which his brother and several other people were killed. He was sentenced to death in 2014, and he was released in April 2025 under Iraq's General Amnesty Law after more than a decade in prison.
Over the years he was an outspoken critic of Iran's influence in Iraq and of Iranian-backed armed groups.
The Lebanese investigation is continuing, and the search for the two remaining suspects is under way. Iraqi diplomats have said they are waiting for the final report from Lebanese security agencies before commenting further. Formal charges and the identity of anyone who may have ordered the killing have not yet been announced.
