Envoy murdered

Press, 15 January 1982, Page 6

Envoy murdered

NZPA-Reuter Beirut A high-ranking Algerian diplomat was found murdered in Beirut yesterday only five hours after unknown gunmen kidnapped him from his house in the Lebanese capital. A police spokesman said the diplomat was Rabeh Jerwa. aged 37, Minister Plenipotentiary at the Algerian Embassy, the second ranking diplomat after the Ambassador. Gunmen broke into Mr Jerwa’s flat at the Beir-el-Abd residential neighbourhood of mostly Muslim west Beirut soon after midnight and forced him at gunpoint to leave with them in a waiting car. the spokesman said.

Mr Jerwa's body was found in the morning at the low-income suburban neighbourhood of Haret-Hreik on the southern edge of Beirut and was taken to the American University Hospital

where the Coroner conducted an autopsy. ■ The Coroner’s report said Mr Jerwa had been shot at point-blank range three times in the face with dum dum explosive bullets.

An American and a French ambassador have been assassinated and an Iraqi ambassador killed in a bomb blast in Beirut since Lebanon’s 1975-76 civil war.

The Lebanese Foreign Minister (Mr Fuad Butros) said “this crime is part of a campaign to force the evacuation of diplomats" from Lebanon. The Lebanese Government recently expressed its "shock" to discover that there were only 15 ambassadors left in Lebanon when it issued invitations to a yearly reception at the presidential palace. A report published in Beirut newspapers said 45 embassies in Lebanon were represented only by charges d'affaires.