Lebanon sentences man to death in absentia over UNIFIL member's killing

A Lebanese court sentenced a man to death in absentia for killing an Irish United Nations peacekeeper, a judicial official said Tuesday, after Hezbollah members were accused of involvement in the 2022 incident.

Private Sean Rooney, 23, was killed and three others were wounded after a UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) convoy came under fire on December 14, 2022 in south Lebanon, long a stronghold of the Iran-backed militant group.

The judicial official, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to brief the media, said Lebanon's military court issued its ruling in the case at around midnight on Monday.

The court "imposed the death sentence... on the main defendant, Mohammad Ayyad", the official said, adding that the ruling was issued in absentia.

A security source told AFP in December 2022 that Hezbollah had handed Ayyad over to the army that month.

But he was released from custody in November 2023 "for health reasons" and had not appeared at any trial session since, the official said Tuesday.

The military court also handed a combination of fines and lighter custodial sentences to four other people "who handed themselves in to the court hours before the session" and acquitted a fifth, the official said.

Skirmishes occur occasionally between UNIFIL patrols and Hezbollah supporters, but they rarely escalate and are generally quickly contained by Lebanese authorities.

In June 2023 a judicial official told AFP that five Hezbollah members were accused of killing Rooney.

A Hezbollah official had denied members of the group were involved.

UNIFIL, which counts around 10,000 peacekeepers from nearly 50 countries, operates south of the Litani River in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel.

UNIFIL came under repeated attacks by Israeli forces during the war with Hezbollah last year.