ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The body of a Kurdish man from Duhok has been found in Lebanon and arrest warrants have been issued for seven people in connection with his murder.
On December 4, Azad Ahmad Hassan, from Kurdistan Region’s Duhok province, traveled from Dubai to Beirut, Lebanon, to visit a friend. His brother, Arshad Ahmad Hassan, who spoke to Rudaw, had urged him not to make the trip, but Azad had insisted on going and traveled with a friend from Sulaimani, identified only by the initial J.
"It was planned that they would arrive in Beirut at 4:00pm on the same day, but time passed without receiving any news from Azad," Hassan told Rudaw, adding that he waited for a long time for his brother to turn his phone on upon his arrival in Beirut.
“Twenty-four hours passed and I did not hear anything from him. I called his friend who went with him to Dubai, but he said, 'I don't know anything. I returned [to the Kurdistan Region], and I lost track of him at the airport,'” Hassan explained.
After a few days with no news, Hassan decided to travel to Beirut to learn about Azad’s fate. There he found out that his brother was seen with some people after leaving the airport. But that was the only information he could obtain, so he reached out to a lawyer for assistance.
“After a decision from the court, the search to find Azad began. Nearly 10 days after his disappearance, the Lebanese intelligence and security agencies told us that our brother was killed,” said Hassan.
Hassan said he went to see his brother’s corpse on Friday. An autopsy revealed that after he was killed, Azad’s body was burned and then buried near Bqaatouta.
A statement from the Lebanese army on December 28 said that the “Intelligence Directorate, after a series of monitoring, tracking, and technical analysis operations, found the body of the Iraqi citizen (A.K.) on the outskirts of the village of Bqaatouta, buried by a group of individuals of different nationalities.”
Lebanese security authorities told Hassan him that some of the suspects had fled to Istanbul, Turkey, and one of them was Iraqi. "We are waiting for their arrest. After his body is returned [to Kurdistan Region], we will file a complaint against the person who accompanied him to Dubai and Beirut,” he said. The family claims they have evidence this person was involved in the murder.
Azad’s body will be returned to the Kurdistan Region in the new year.
Security authorities in the Kurdistan Region, specifically Duhok and Sulaimani police, have not commented on Azad’s murder.
