Lebanon's Hizbullah has denied that its affiliates were involved in the killing of an Irish United Nations peacekeeping force (UNIFIL) soldier last year, after a Lebanese military court charged them with it.
Reuters quoted Hezbollah media official Mohammed Afif as saying that the five defendants were not members of the party, and also denied that the indictment had described them as belonging to Hezbollah.
After the soldier's death, Hizbullah played a major role in easing tensions and cooperating with the army and judicial investigation, Afif said.
A senior Lebanese judicial source said on Thursday that the military court had charged "5 people, some of whom are members of Hezbollah and its allied Amal movement," according to Reuters.
The judicial source said the evidence was derived from camera recordings in which the defendants identify themselves as members of Hezbollah.
Reuters, citing a second judicial source, reported that the camera evidence was mentioned in the 30-page court document.
On 15 December 2022, soldier Sean Rooney, 23, was killed in a shooting incident targeting a UN force vehicle in southern Lebanon.
At the time, Hezbollah denied involvement in the killing, describing it as an "unintentional incident" between local residents and UNIFIL.
UNIFIL is a multinational UN peace force deployed in southern Lebanon since 1978 and reinforced after the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon.
Occasionally, there are problems between UNIFIL patrols and Hezbollah supporters in the border area, which is a key Hezbollah stronghold, but they rarely escalate and are quickly contained by the Lebanese authorities.