The body of Ahmad al-Alwani, former Iraqi parliament member, was found on Tuesday in Beirut. The circumstances of his death, as he was one of the key figures in the Sunni protests against the government in 2013, are currently under investigation.
Details of the body discovery
Reports indicate that news of al-Alwani's disappearance was published around 8:30 PM local time, and officials later announced that he had died. Mohammad Reza al-Hosseini, Iraq's ambassador to Lebanon, told the Iraqi official news agency that Baghdad is awaiting a report from Lebanese authorities regarding the circumstances of his death.
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The National News Agency of Lebanon reported that Judge Ahmad Rami al-Haj is responsible for following up on this case. Images circulated on Lebanese and Iraqi social media claim that al-Alwani's body was found in the bathroom of a residence.
Background of Ahmad al-Alwani
Ahmad al-Alwani, 57, was born in Ramadi and studied geology in Baghdad before entering politics. He was one of the prominent Sunni representatives in parliament who had previously been arrested and sentenced to death by Iraqi authorities. He was arrested in late 2013 in his hometown of Anbar province while Sunnis were protesting their marginalization under the post-U.S. occupation government.
Al-Alwani was one of the main organizers of these protests, and during an attempt to prevent his arrest, his brother, five of his guards, and two Iraqi soldiers were killed in a shooting. The government of Nouri al-Maliki, dominated by Shia politicians and close to Iran, has been accused of neglecting Iraq's Sunni minority after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
In 2014, ISIS exploited the protests from the previous year and seized Sunni areas in Anbar, Mosul, and other parts of the country.
Al-Alwani was arrested on terrorism charges and subsequently sentenced to death. He was released and acquitted last April, and the Inter-Parliamentary Union at that time stated that it had been calling for his release for years and claimed he had been tortured during his detention.
It is still unclear when al-Alwani entered Lebanon.
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