Body of slain former MP Alwani returns to Iraq ahead of Ramadi funeral

BAGHDAD — The body of slain former Iraqi lawmaker Ahmed al-Alwani arrived at Baghdad International Airport on a private plane from Beirut on Saturday, ahead of his funeral and burial in Anbar governorate, a source told 964media.

Government officials and tribal figures received the body at the airport, said the source, who has knowledge of the arrangements. It was then to be taken by road to Anbar for official and public funeral ceremonies.

The plane left Beirut at 9:05 a.m. Beirut time (10:05 a.m. Baghdad time) with several of Alwani’s relatives on board, after Lebanese judicial and security procedures and the embassy’s consular procedures were completed, Iraq’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammed Reda al-Husseini, said in a statement.

Earlier Saturday, Hamed Rashid al-Muhanna, head of the Albu Alwan tribe, said on Facebook that mourners would receive the body at the tribe’s guesthouse in Ramadi, Anbar’s capital, once it arrived. He urged them to keep order and rejected any offensive language.

“We call on all our people and the sons of our honorable tribes to refrain completely from firing guns under any circumstances, out of love and loyalty to the martyr and respect for his cause and his principles,” Muhanna wrote.

Anbar police chief Adel Hamed Rashid visited the guesthouse on Friday and said police would not allow sectarian slogans or anything that undermined the authority of the state during the funeral. He said gunfire was strictly banned.

Parliament Speaker Haibat al-Halbousi, former Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi and Sovereignty Alliance leader Khamis al-Khanjar went to the guesthouse the same day to offer condolences.

On Friday evening the Iraqi Embassy in Beirut took custody of the body from Lebanese authorities at the family’s request, the embassy said in a statement. It said DNA tests had matched samples from the body with those of Alwani’s son, Talha al-Alwani. A CT scan of the body also confirmed his identity, the embassy said.

The handover came after a Lebanese forensic doctor issued a report that “showed the causes of death,” the embassy said. It did not give the cause and said a copy of the report would go to the family.

Alwani’s body was found on Tuesday in a Beirut apartment, days after he flew in from Erbil on Nov. 5. President Nizar Amedi pressed Lebanon for an urgent investigation on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Lt. Gen. Saad Maan, head of the Security Media Cell, said Alwani checked out of a hotel near Raouche, a seafront district of Beirut, less than an hour after arriving. Citing the hotel’s owners, Maan said Alwani left in a white Range Rover with people who spoke with Syrian accents. Alwani’s media office has given a different account, saying he did not stay at any hotel on the day he arrived.

Alwani, a Sunni former MP from Anbar, played a prominent role in the 2012-2013 protests against the government of Nouri al-Maliki, then prime minister. Security forces arrested him on Dec. 28, 2013, in a raid on his Ramadi home that killed his brother and several guards. A court sentenced him to death in 2014, and he was freed in 2025 under Iraq’s General Amnesty Law.

The embassy said it was closely following the investigation, which judicial and security agencies in both countries are conducting together. Lebanese authorities have not publicly named any suspect or given a motive for the killing.