2 Killed while Reportedly Placing Bomb Under Vehicle of Lebanese Judge
Two people were killed when a bomb they were reportedly trying to plant under the parked vehicle of a Lebanese judge in a parking lot in Antelias mistakenly went off, the Lebanese Red Cross said Thursday.
The men were identified as Hassan Nayef Nassar and Ihsan Ali Diya, who died after he was taken to hospital.
Several people were also injured, the reports said. A witness told Agence France Presse he saw rescuers carrying a man whose arm and leg had been torn off in the explosion.
The vehicle that the two assailants were reportedly trying to booby trap is a Nissan Murano registered to State Shura Council Judge Albert Serhan - license plate number 29592- and is driven by his son and engineer Alain.
"My son is an engineer and he parks his car in that lot, along with his colleagues, near their office," the judge told AFP by telephone.
"I have never been threatened nor does anyone in my family dabble in politics," he added.
Alain Sarhan told OTV that he saw two corpses on the ground near his car after he heard the blast.
A credit card that belongs to Nassar was found at the scene of the explosion.
The National News Agency said the two assailants arrived at the area in a BMW X5 holding plate number 278458 and is registered in Diya’s name.
Army and security forces immediately rushed to the site, cordoned off the area and brought in sniffer dogs.
Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said the two victims had been seated in a car in the parking lot, adding that one of them was the owner of the vehicle.
The blast sowed panic and raised fears of a repeat of the wave of deadly car bombs between 2004 and 2008 that targeted anti-Syrian journalists and politicians.
But Charbel downplayed the likelihood of an act of terror and said the bomb had been the work of amateurs.
"Our investigation so far does not point to an act of sabotage," he told reporters.
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