Bulgaria returns body of 2012 bus bomber to Lebanon

The body of a French-Lebanese dual national, who bombed a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Bulgaria in 2012, was being repatriated to Lebanon on Thursday, a source with knowledge of the matter said.

The attack at Bulgaria's Burgas airport was the deadliest against Israelis abroad since 2004. Five Israelis, including a pregnant woman, and the Bulgarian bus driver were killed along with the bomber, Mohamad Hassan El-Husseini, 23.

At the Husseini family's request, the head of Lebanon's General Security agency at the time, Abbas Ibrahim, was "in contact with the Bulgarian authorities" to seek the repatriation of the body, the source told AFP.

Bulgarian authorities asked the family to engage a lawyer and agreed to return Husseini's remains during the war between Israel and Hezbollah last year, the source said, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to brief the media.

The family was set to receive his body on Thursday ahead of burial, the source added.

Both Bulgaria and Israel accused Hezbollah of orchestrating the bombing, an accusation that played a part in the European Union's subsequent decision to blacklist the group's military wing as a "terrorist" organization.

Pro-Hezbollah social media accounts have circulated a notice from Husseini's family setting the funeral for Friday in the group's south Beirut stronghold.

In 2020, a Bulgarian court sentenced Lebanese-Australian Meliad Farah and Lebanese-Canadian Hassan El Hajj Hassan to life in prison over the attack. Neither defendant was present for the trial.

Airport CCTV footage showed Husseini wandering inside the airport's arrivals hall with a backpack shortly before the explosion tore through a bus outside the terminal that was headed to a Black Sea resort.

Prosecutors said they had been unable to determine if the explosives were detonated by the bomber or his convicted accomplices.