A former ice-cream seller has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of two Irish peacekeeping troops in south Lebanon 40 years ago.
A Lebanese military tribunal convicted Mahmoud Bazzi (76) of the murders of Pte Thomas Barrett, from Cork, and Pte Derek Smallhorne, from Dublin, on April 18, 1980.
The tribunal subsequently reduced the life sentence to 15 years in prison, with hard labour.
Bazzi was deported back to Lebanon from the United States five years ago and has been before the tribunal since then.
The two murdered soldiers and their comrade, Pte John O’Mahony, were in their last week of a six-month tour of duty with Unifil (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) when they were sent out as part of a group to provide supplies to a post near the border with Israel.