Former Iraqi member of parliament Ahmed al-Alwani has been found dead in a Beirut apartment, four days after he went missing in the Lebanese capital, prompting a murder investigation led by Lebanon's public prosecutor.

Lebanese security forces entered the apartment in the Tariq al-Jdideh district on Monday night, 9 November, and found al-Alwani dead, Lebanese and Iraqi sources said on Tuesday. His family had told the Iraqi embassy in Beirut that his telephones had been switched off and that even his bodyguards could not reach him.

Al-Alwani, a Sunni politician who formerly represented the western province of Anbar in Iraq's parliament, had arrived at Beirut airport on 5 November. He had booked a room at a hotel in the capital's Hamra district, according to reports from Beirut.

What investigators have said so far

A Lebanese security source told Al Arabiya that al-Alwani had been strangled. Other officials said he had been hit on the head before being strangled, although the full findings of the examination have not yet been published.

A Lebanese judicial source told the AFP news agency that preliminary findings indicated al-Alwani was strangled to death and that a Lebanese national suspected of involvement had been arrested. The official said the authorities were looking for two Syrian suspects who were still at large.

Al Arabiya reported that surveillance cameras showed al-Alwani arriving at the building with two other people of his own accord. Lebanon's official National News Agency described the death as a murder and said the investigation was being overseen by Judge Ahmad Rami al-Hajj, with the Internal Security Forces carrying out the inquiry.

Iraq's state news agency confirmed that the body had been found, and Iraqi authorities contacted al-Alwani's family for DNA samples to confirm the identification. Iraq's ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammed Reda al-Husseini, said on Tuesday that the embassy was following the case closely and was awaiting the final report from the Lebanese security agencies to disclose the circumstances of the crime.

Who was Ahmed al-Alwani?

Al-Alwani was a Sunni tribal and political figure from Anbar province who sat in parliament for the Iraqiya List. He rose to prominence during the protests of 2012 and 2013 in Ramadi against the government of then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and he was an outspoken critic of Iran-backed armed factions in Iraq.

He was arrested in December 2013 in a raid on his home in Ramadi that set off a gunfight in which his brother and a member of the security forces were killed. He was later convicted of killing a soldier and sentenced to death in 2014 on terrorism charges. He was released in April 2025 under Iraq's General Amnesty Law after more than a decade in prison.

Office calls death an assassination

In a statement, al-Alwani's office called his death an assassination and a treacherous crime, and called for a transparent investigation and accountability for those responsible.

"This is not a passing incident to be brushed aside with condolences and condemnation," the office said. "It is a crime that demands a firm official response and a transparent investigation that reveals who planned it, who carried it out and who else was involved."

No motive for the killing has been confirmed, and Lebanese investigators have not announced completed findings. The case is being watched closely in both Beirut and Baghdad, where al-Alwani remained a well-known and divisive figure more than a decade after his arrest.