After Iraq ex-MP’s killing, Lebanon asks Syria to extradite suspects

What the report says

Lebanon has asked Syria to arrest and extradite two Syrian suspects linked to the killing of former Iraqi parliamentarian Ahmed al-Alwani, according to Lebanese judicial and prosecutorial sources cited by Al Jazeera and AFP. Al-Alwani, a longtime Sunni politician and outspoken critic of Iran’s influence in Iraq, was found dead in an apartment in Beirut earlier this week. Preliminary findings reported by investigators indicate he was strangled, though the motive and the full sequence of events remain under investigation.

Authorities in Lebanon have also arrested a Lebanese national for questioning, and the country’s top prosecutor is reportedly overseeing the case through the Internal Security Forces’ Information Branch. Investigators are still assessing possible motives; AFP cited sources saying an early line of inquiry points to a financial angle, but no conclusion has been reached. Separately, Lebanese authorities are investigating five Hezbollah members detained in northern Lebanon in an unrelated case, the report said.

According to Iraqi officials quoted by Al Jazeera, al-Alwani arrived in Beirut on November 5 from Erbil, stayed briefly at a hotel, and left soon afterward with people described by hotel staff as speaking with a Syrian accent. His body was found on Tuesday in Beirut’s Tariq al-Jdideh district. The case has drawn attention in both Lebanon and Iraq because al-Alwani was a prominent political figure who spent more than a decade in prison in Iraq before his release under a 2025 amnesty law.