Lebanon's military judiciary has indicted five Hizbullah and Amal members, one of whom is arrested, for the premeditated murder of an Irish soldier from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Western and local news agencies reported on Thursday.

Irish soldier Sean Rooney, 23, was killed and three other colleagues were wounded on December 3, 14, when their armored vehicle was shot as it passed through the Aqibiya area of southern Lebanon.

The indictment, issued by First Military Investigative Judge Fadi Sawan, said the defendants had "formed a group of villains and carried out one criminal project".

All the defendants were referred to the military court for trial on charges of committing a criminal act that led to the death of the Irish soldier and the attempted murder of three other soldiers, a Lebanese judicial source told Reuters.

According to the 30-page indictment, the actions of "both the arrested Mohamed Ayyad and four fugitives from justice apply to the fifth paragraph of Article 4 of the Lebanese Penal Code, which stipulates that if a crime is committed against a public official during the exercise of his job or in the course of exercising or because of it, he shall be punished by death."

Evidence from surveillance cameras

AFP quoted the indictment as saying that audio and video footage of surveillance cameras in the vicinity of the shooting site showed "clearly surrounding the patrol attacked from all sides and attacked by gunmen, some of whom were heard saying: We are from Hizbullah, and calling some of them through radio devices".

The agency noted that the first military investigative judge handed over a copy of the indictment to UNIFIL.

Reuters said Hezbollah's media office did not respond to attempts to reach him, and that Amal declined to comment.

Hizbullah was quick to offer condolences to UNIFIL after the Irish soldier was killed by a bullet that penetrated his head from behind.

The party, through its official, called for it not to be involved in the "unintentional" incident between the townspeople and UNIFIL, and then handed over the main shooter as part of its cooperation with the investigation conducted by the army's intelligence directorate.

UNIFIL did not specify details of the incident, which took place outside its scope of operations, while the Irish Army reported that two armoured vehicles carrying eight personnel came under "light weapons fire" on their way to Beirut.

On Dec. 16, Simon Coveney, then Irish foreign minister and current defence minister, told Irish national broadcaster RTE that he did not accept Hezbollah's assurances that he was not involved.

Occasional skirmishes between UNIFIL patrols and Hezbollah supporters in the UNIFIL area of operations near the border in the south of the country rarely escalate and are quickly contained by the Lebanese authorities.

UNIFIL has been in Lebanon since 1978, has about 10,<> troops, and is deployed in the south of the country to separate the Lebanese and Israeli sides.