BEIRUT — Lebanon’s militant juggernaut Hezbollah movement has denied having any links to five people who were indicted Thursday over their alleged involvement in the killing of an Irish peacekeeper in the south of the country last year.
Fadi Sawan, the investigating judge in the country’s military tribunal, issued a 30-page indictment Friday against five people for “forming a group of malefactors to commit a crime,” a judicial official told AFP on Wednesday. The accused were referred to military trial and could face the death penalty under Lebanon’s penal code. A court document has revealed that the five accused were members of the Shiite Hezbollah group and its ally, the Amal Movement.
One of the five men indicted, Mohamad Ayyad, has been in the custody of Lebanese authorities since he was detained in December shortly after the attack. Hezbollah said back then the man was a supporter but not a member of the movement. The four others, identified as Ali Khalifeh, Ali Salman, Hussein Salman and Mustafa Salman, remain at large.
In December 2022, Private Sean Rooney was killed and another seriously injured when two UNIFIL armored vehicles came under small arms fire in southern Lebanon. The UNIFIL patrol was reportedly heading from its base in the south toward the Beirut airport when it took a detour in al-Aqbiya village, a Hezbollah stronghold, outside the area of its operations. The UN patrol was reportedly surrounded by several vehicle and a group of angry men who fired at the UN soldiers.
