Terror group Hezbollah has reportedly handed over a man suspected of killing Irish soldier Sean Rooney in Lebanon, it has emerged.
Private Rooney, 23, was killed and three others injured on December 14 when their UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) vehicle was attacked near the village of Al-Aqbiya in the country’s south, a Hezbollah stronghold.
“The main shooter has been arrested by security forces after Hezbollah handed him over hours ago,” a security official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) today.
It comes just days after the Lebanese authorities vowed that they would do everything to catch Sean’s killers.
Hezbollah is cooperating in the probe led by Lebanese military intelligence, the official said, adding that “preliminary investigations are nearly complete.”
Earlier this week, a judicial official said that Lebanese investigators had identified suspects in the attack, adding that there were “at least two” shooters.
A car carrying armed men followed the UNIFIL vehicle, the judicial source had said, citing preliminary findings and calling the attack “premeditated.”
Hezbollah has repeatedly denied involvement in the incident, and its security chief Wafic Safa has described the killing as “unintentional.”
Witnesses said villagers in the Al-Aqbiya area blocked Rooney’s vehicle after it took a road along the Mediterranean coast not normally used by UNIFIL.
Al-Aqbiya is just outside UNIFIL’s area of operations, the force has said.
The three passengers were injured when the vehicle hit a pylon and overturned.
Private Rooney died after he was shot in the head, while his comrade,
Trooper Shane Kearney, suffered a fractured skull and has been evacuated back to Ireland for treatment.
It is the first death of a UNIFIL member in a violent incident in Lebanon since January 2015, when a Spanish peacekeeper was killed by Israeli fire during an armed clash between the Israel Defence Forces and Hezbollah.
Private Rooney was laid to rest last Thursday following a funeral mass in which his grieving mum Natasha described him as a “national hero”.
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