Lebanese security forces have arrested a local taxi driver suspected of killing Rebecca Dykes, a British woman who worked at the British embassy in Beirut and was found dead on Saturday, a security source said.
The security source said preliminary investigations showed the motive was purely criminal, not political.
Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported that the suspect had admitted to the crime and had picked Dykes up in his taxi in Beirut’s Gemmayzeh district on Friday evening before assaulting and killing her.
Photo: EPA
Police traced his car through surveillance cameras on the highway, NNA reported.
Dykes’ body was reportedly found on the side of a motorway in the early hours of Saturday morning. The circumstances surrounding her death were unclear, but local police officials suggested she had been strangled.
Her body was found without any identity papers on the Metn highway, which leads out of the Lebanese capital to the northeast suburbs.
A forensic examination suggested she had died at about 4am on Saturday.
A Lebanese judicial source said Dykes, who was believed to be 30 years old, had spent the evening with friends at a cafe in Gemmayze, a district of Beirut known for its bars and restaurants. She is thought to have left on her own at around midnight.
British Ambassador to Lebanon Hugo Shorter tweeted about Dykes’ death.
“The whole embassy is deeply shocked, saddened by this news. My thoughts are with Becky’s family, friends and colleagues for their tragic loss,” he wrote.
“We’re providing consular support to her family and working very closely with Lebanese authorities who are conducting the police investigation,” he said.
“We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Rebecca,” a family spokesman said. “We are doing all we can to understand what happened. We request that the media respect our privacy as we come together as a family at this very difficult time.”
Dykes worked as a program and policy manager with the Department for International Development and as a policy manager with the Libya team at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, according to her LinkedIn page.
She had previously worked as an Iraq research analyst with the FCO. She had a degree from Manchester University and a masters in international security and global governance from Birkbeck, University of London.
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