Beirut - (AFP) - The Lebanese judiciary on Thursday charged seven people, including one detainee who was handed over by Hezbollah to the army, in the case of shooting a patrol of the Irish battalion operating in the United Nations Interim Force in South Lebanon (UNIFIL), which resulted in the death of one. Its members, according to a judicial source told AFP.

An Irish soldier was killed and three of his colleagues were wounded on December 14th, during an incident involving shots fired at their armored car while it was passing in the Al-Aqabiya area (south). Less than two weeks later, Hezbollah, the powerful political and military force, handed over the army the main shooter.

The judicial source said, "The government's commissioner to the military court, Judge Fadi Akiki, charged the detainee, Muhammad Ayyad, with the crime of killing the Irish soldier and attempting to kill his three comrades by shooting them with a military machine gun."

He also claimed, according to the same source, against "four known and hidden persons, and two other unidentified persons, for the crimes of shooting at threats with an unlicensed weapon, destroying the military vehicle and intimidating its members."

Akiki referred the file with the arrested person to the first military investigation judge, Fadi Sawan, to conduct investigations and issue the necessary judicial notes.

A security source told AFP on December 25 that the handover of the main shooter came "in the context of Hezbollah's cooperation with the army intelligence investigation."

After the killing of the Irish soldier, Hezbollah rushed to console UNIFIL. He called, through an official, not to involve him in the "unintended" incident.

UNIFIL did not specify the details of the incident, which occurred outside the scope of its operations, while the Irish Army reported that two armored cars containing eight personnel were subjected to "light weapons fire" while they were on their way to Beirut.

The UNIFIL command called on the Lebanese authorities to expedite the completion of investigations and to hold those responsible for the recent incident to account.
From time to time, skirmishes take place between UNIFIL patrols and Hezbollah supporters in the UNIFIL area of operations near the border in the south of the country. But it rarely escalates and the Lebanese authorities quickly contain it.

The UNIFIL force has been present in Lebanon since 1978, and it includes about ten thousand soldiers and is deployed in southern Lebanon to separate Israel and Lebanon after several conflicts.