Hezbollah member sentenced to death over killing of Irish peacekeeper Seán Rooney (23)

Irish Independent

6 days ago

Judicial sources said Mohammad Ayyad had already been sentenced in absentia to death, and three others – Hussein Suleiman, Mustafa Suleiman and Ali Hakim – received only fines ranging from about $1,100 (€952) to $2,200.
Defendants Ali Khalifeh and Ali Suleiman were sentenced to one and three months in prison, respectively. A seventh defendant, Mohammad Mezher, was acquitted.
A security source said Ayyad was briefly detained in connection with the incident, but was released on bail in November 2023 after his lawyer provided medical documents showing he had cancer.
Private Rooney, a 23-year-old Unifil peacekeeper from Newtowncunningham, Co Donegal, was killed on December 15, 2022, when the UN vehicle he was in was fired on in southern Lebanon.
It was the first fatal attack on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon since 2015.
Pte Rooney and several other Irish soldiers from Unifil were on their way from their base to Beirut airport. Two UN vehicles apparently took a detour through the town of Al-Aqbiya, which is not part of the area under the peacekeepers' mandate, and a mob opened fire.
In January 2023, the Lebanese mili­tary tribunal charged seven people over the attack. In June of that year, a court document identified some of them as members of Hezbollah, the armed group that controlled the area at the time of the attack. The charges against the seven men ranged from murder to damaging a vehicle.
Initial reports said angry residents confronted the peacekeepers, but the indictment concluded that the shooting was a targeted attack and alleged the defendants were linked to Hezbollah.
The Lebanese officials said the def­endants who appeared in court had testified that some of them were watching a sports match and noticed a ve­hicle passing suspiciously several times on a narrow residential street, leading a crowd to gather. They claimed they were unaware it belonged to Unifil.
Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon frequently accuse the UN mission of collusion with Israel
Hezbollah officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Unifil was created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after Israel's 1978 invasion.
The UN expanded its mission foll­owing the 2006 war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, allowing peacekeepers to deploy along the Israeli border to help the Lebanese military extend its authority into the country's south for the first time in decades.
Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon frequently accuse the UN mission of collusion with Israel, while Israel has accused the peacekeepers of turning a blind eye to Hezbollah's military activities in southern Lebanon.
Unifil's mandate is up for renewal next month for the first time since last year's war between Israel and Hezbollah, which ended with a US-mediated ceasefire in November. Unifil welcomed the conclusion of the trial process and Lebanon's 'commitment to bring the perpetrators to justice'.