Five Israeli tourists were killed at Bourgas Airport in Bulgaria by the explosion of a bomb placed in a bus connecting the airport terminal to the travelers' vacation destination, on July 18, 2012. (Credit: Archive photo AFP)
The body of a French Lebanese man identified as the suicide bomber behind a 2012 attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria is set to be repatriated to Lebanon on Thursday, a Lebanese source familiar with the matter told AFP.
On July 18, 2012, five Israeli tourists were killed when a bomb exploded aboard a bus at Burgas Airport, a Black Sea resort town in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian driver of the bus was also killed in the blast, which remains the deadliest attack on Israelis abroad since 2004.
Attack attributed to Hezbollah
The bomber, Mohammad Hassan al-Husseini, 23 at the time, was identified through DNA analysis. According to the Lebanese source, his family had requested the repatriation of his remains, and the head of Lebanese General Security at the time initiated discussions with Bulgarian authorities to facilitate the process.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Bulgarian government asked the family to appoint a lawyer. After several years, the lawyer informed them in 2024 that they could retrieve the remains. The family had initially been unable to act due to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, but planned to retrieve the body on Thursday for burial.
Bulgarian and Israeli authorities blamed Hezbollah for the attack, prompting the European Union to designate the group's military wing as a terrorist organization in 2013.
Social media accounts affiliated with Hezbollah shared a death notice issued by Husseini's family, announcing that the funeral would be held Friday in Beirut’s southern suburbs, with burial in a cemetery reserved for fighters.
Hezbollah has never claimed responsibility for the 2012 attack.
Convictions in absentia
In 2020, a Bulgarian court convicted two men in absentia and sentenced them to life in prison: Meliad Farah, a Lebanese Australian, and Hassan al-Hajj Hassan, a Lebanese Canadian. The two were accused of assisting in the attack.
Farah was found guilty of assembling the bomb, while Hajj Hassan allegedly rented cars and accommodations used in the operation. Both men left Bulgaria the night of the attack and have remained at large, despite international efforts to locate them.
They were placed on the U.S. terrorist blacklist in 2015, with Washington freezing their potential assets and asserting they are likely in Lebanon.
Surveillance footage showed Husseini inside the airport’s arrival hall shortly before the blast, carrying a backpack and wearing a blonde wig. Witnesses said he attempted to place the bag in the bus’s luggage compartment, but an Israeli passenger confronted him over the move, possibly triggering the explosion.
The court was unable to determine whether Husseini detonated the bomb himself or whether it was triggered remotely by an accomplice.