A policeman holds a bag containing evidence from a crime scene in Zahle, July 28, 2023. (Courtesy of Sarah Abdallah/L'Orient-Le Jour)
BEIRUT — A man killed his former girlfriend in the parking lot of a Zahle restaurant, in the Bekaa Valley, before killing himself on Friday afternoon.
A security source told L’Orient Today that the victim was the murderer's former romantic partner, but a relative of the victim denied this.
According to the security source, the man — who was married — saw his paramour in the company of another man at La Tour restaurant in Zahle. The man shot her in the parking lot before then turning the gun on himself. He died a few hours later.
A cousin of the murdered woman, who requested anonymity, shared a different version of events.
According to the cousin, the young woman met the perpetrator three months ago. She then discovered that he was married, in the process of divorce, and had a "bad reputation" in the area, so she decided to end their relationship.
"But the man ... kept following her. He threatened her with a gun three days ago," the woman's cousin old L'Orient-Le Jour by phone. "My cousin filed a complaint with the security services on Wednesday, and they questioned the man [Thursday]."
According to the woman's cousin, the victim was at La Tour restaurant for a work-related lunch.
Similar incidents and femicide are unfortunately not infrequent in Lebanon. Local women's rights associations have been denouncing an "unprecedented" level of violence against women in recent months.
Earlier this week, a man was arrested on suspicions of shooting his wife in her sleep in Chabtine, Batroun.
On June 8, a man from Jezzine allegedly murdered his wife and mother-in-law before taking his own life.
In March, a 27-year-old Lebanese man from Baalbeck, in the Bekaa plain, was accused of killing his 26-year-old wife by shooting her three times.
In Daraya, Chouf, last February, a man in his thirties killed his wife and son, then took his own life. The same month, a retired Internal Security Forces (ISF) officer killed his ex-wife with a shotgun in Tripoli, North Lebanon.
In August 2022, Hanaa Khodr, 21, a mother of two and five months pregnant at the time, was beaten and burned alive by her husband. That same month, another woman from Akkar, Ghinwa Alawi, a mother of three, attempted to end her life after years of alleged domestic violence.
Reporting contributed by Sarah Abdallah.
