Veteran Politician Michel Murr Dies from Covid-19

Veteran Lebanese politician Michel Murr died Sunday from Covid-19, his family and state-run National News Agency said.

He was around 89 years old.

Murr had served as deputy prime minister and interior minister and was a prominent and powerful lawmaker in the Northern Metn region.

His health had deteriorated in recent years and he stopped attending parliamentary sessions.

Murr was born to a Greek Orthodox family in the Northern Metn town of Bteghrine in 1932. He studied engineering at St. Joseph University and graduated in 1955.

Murr lived in West Africa during much of the 1960s and made a sizable fortune there in the construction industry. He returned to Lebanon and was elected to parliament in 1968 by aligning himself with Pierre Gemayel who dominated politics in the Metn district.

Murr lost his reelection bid in 1972, a defeat which he is said to have blamed on Gemayel.

In the mid-1980s, he supported the LF faction of Elie Hobeika and participated in the negotiation of the Tripartite Accord, an agreement by Hobeika, Progressive Socialist Party chief Walid Jumblatt and Amal Movement leader Nabih Berri that would have legalized Syrian presence in Lebanon. 

His son, ex-defense minister Elias Murr, married Karine Lahoud, the daughter of then-army commander Emile Lahoud in 1992. Later they divorced.

Michel Murr is the grandfather of ex-Lebanese MP and journalist Nayla Tueni and ex-father-in-law of slain journalist and MP Gebran Tueni.