Saudi citizen killed in Lebanon, brothers held
He married his brother’s ex-wife, killed in fight over her right to take kids’ custody
Beirut: A Saudi citizen living in Lebanon was killed in the Beirut suburbs and two of his brothers arrested in connection with the incident, Lebanese police and a security source said Monday.
The victim was stabbed to death on Saturday in his home in a southern Beirut area known to be under the security control of Hezbollah, a Shiite organisation backed by Iran.
His brothers confessed to killing him “for family reasons”, a statement by Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces said.
The police identified the man only by his initials.
In a social media post on Sunday that did not name the victim, Waleed Bukhari, Riyadh’s ambassador to Lebanon, expressed appreciation for the police’s efforts to “uncover the facts and bring the perpetrators to justice”.
The victim married his brother’s ex-wife, and was killed in a fight over her right to take custody of her children, said a Lebanese security source, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
On Saturday the victim fought with his brother in support of his wife’s custody demand. The brother then left his house, and came back with their other brother to kill him, the source said.
According to the Lebanese police statement, he was born in 1980 and the two detained brothers in 1976 and 1990.
The police said the incident occurred at around 8:30pm (1730 GMT) in Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah bastion.
The Lebanese security source said the victim had been living in Dahiyeh, which implies he was under at least tacit Hezbollah protection.