Lebanese authorities have asked Syria to arrest and hand over two Syrian nationals suspected of involvement in the killing of former Iraqi MP Ahmed al-Alwani, who was found dead in an apartment in Beirut earlier this week.

The request was made by investigators at the Lebanese Public Prosecutor's office, a Lebanese judicial source told the AFP news agency. The identities of the two suspects have not yet been determined, the source said, and a Lebanese national has been arrested and is being interrogated.

What investigators have found so far

Preliminary findings indicate that Mr al-Alwani was strangled to death, according to the judicial source, but the perpetrators and the motives remain unclear. Investigators are still trying to establish why he was killed, although an initial inquiry points to a financial angle, sources told AFP.

Mr al-Alwani's body was found on Tuesday evening in an apartment in the Tariq al-Jdideh neighbourhood of Beirut, according to Lebanese media. He had arrived in the city from Erbil airport on a Middle East Airlines flight on the evening of 5 November and was driven to a hotel.

According to Lieutenant General Saad Maan, head of the Iraqi Security Media Cell, who is following the investigation in Lebanon, Mr al-Alwani left the hotel less than an hour after checking in, telling reception staff he was leaving with friends. Hotel staff told investigators that the people with him were speaking with a Syrian accent.

Iraq's state news agency INA reported that Mr al-Alwani left the hotel in a white Range Rover, after which he made two calls to relatives in Iraq before contact with him was lost.

Investigation under Lebanon's top prosecutor

Lebanon's top prosecutor, Judge Ahmed Rami al-Hajj, is personally overseeing the investigation, according to the official National News Agency. The inquiry is being carried out by the Information Branch of Lebanon's Internal Security Forces.

In a separate case, the Information Branch is investigating five Hezbollah members who were arrested in the Batroun highlands in northern Lebanon, according to the public prosecutor's media office. No link between that case and Mr al-Alwani's killing has been reported.

Iraq is sending a team to assist in the Lebanese investigation, and Iraq's President Nizar Amedi has called for a swift inquiry to establish the circumstances of the killing and identify those responsible, after meeting Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in Turkiye on Wednesday. Iraq's Ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammed Reda al-Husseini, said on Tuesday that the Iraqi embassy was following the case closely and awaiting the final report from the Lebanese security agencies.

Who was Ahmed al-Alwani?

Mr al-Alwani, a Sunni politician from Ramadi in Iraq's western Anbar province, formerly represented the province in Iraq's parliament. He rose to prominence during the protests of 2012 and 2013 against the Shia-led government of then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whom critics accused of sectarian policies that marginalised Sunnis.

He was also a vocal critic of Iran's influence in Iraq and of Iranian-backed Shia armed groups in the country, a stance that has drawn attention to the case across the region.

Mr al-Alwani was arrested in December 2013 during a security raid on his home in Ramadi, during which his brother and several others were killed. He was sentenced to death in 2014 on terrorism charges, but was released in April 2025 under Iraq's General Amnesty Law after more than a decade in prison.

Whether Damascus acts on Lebanon's request will now be closely watched. The extradition ask tests a sensitive cross-border relationship, and investigators have stressed that the motive for the killing has not yet been established.