The Lebanese-French suicide bomber who killed five Israelis and their local bus driver in Burgas, Bulgaria, on July 18, 2012, was buried on Friday in a cemetery designated for Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon.
Abbas Ibrahim, a former head of the Lebanese General Security intelligence agency, told the Associated Press that he negotiated the return of the remains of Mohamad Hassan El Husseini.
On July 18, 2012, El Husseini, 23, struck a group of Israelis at Burgas Airport in Bulgaria, killing six (and himself) and wounding 32 others. The bombing occurred shortly after the tourists had arrived on a charter flight from Tel Aviv and boarded a bus to their hotel.
Israeli and Bulgarian authorities pinned the attack on the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist group.
El Husseini, who was eventually identified through a DNA analysis, had entered Bulgaria days before the bombing using the alias Jacques Felipe Martin.
After a four-year investigation, the case reached the courts in 2016, but the trial did not start until 2018. Nearly 100 expert reports were submitted into evidence and 200 witnesses questioned during the proceedings.
Lebanese-Australian Meliad Farah, 35, and Lebanese-Canadian Hassan El Hajj Hassan, 28, were tried in absentia and charged with terrorism.
The two men were sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of commutation, and the court awarded $115 million in civil damages to the victims’ families.
Farah and El Hajj Hassan remain at large.
