A Lebanese activist and intellectual known for his opposition to the Shia movement Hezbollah was found shot dead in his car at a village near the southern city of Sidon.
The murder, six months after a cataclysmic explosion at Beirut port, drew condemnation from abroad and tributes from his many friends on Friday.
Lokman Slim, 58, was a leading secular voice in the Shia community and routinely criticised, and often threatened, over his anti-Hezbollah stance.
“He was found dead in his car,” a senior security official said.
Mr Slim was shot five times in the head and once in the back between 2am and 3am on Thursday at El-Aaddousiye, several hours after setting off in his Toyota Corolla the previous evening.
Without naming Hezbollah, Mr Slim’s sister Rasha al-Ameer said before his death was confirmed that his disappearance was inevitably linked to his opinions.
Hezbollah late on Thursday condemned the killing, and called on the “competent judicial and security apparatuses to work fast to discover and punish the culprits”.
Earlier, as Slim’s relatives gathered in the family house and friends trickled in to extend their condolences, Ms Ameer remembered her brother. “I always used to ask him: ‘Lokman, are you not afraid to speak your mind so freely in our countries, that are closed like prisons?’,” she said.
“He used to tell me he was not afraid of death. They have killed an exceptional human being.”
Read the article by Tony Gamal-Gabriel in The Australian.