Angry mob of Lebanese villagers lynch murder suspect in town centre in gruesome vigilante attack

A mob of angry Lebanese villagers stabbed to death an Egyptian man and then lynched his naked body in the centre of town over allegations he killed four members of a local family.

Mohammed Msallem, a 38-year-old Egyptian who worked as a butcher in Ketermaya, had been arrested a day earlier on suspicion of shooting to death an elderly couple and their two young granddaughters, aged seven and nine.

He was leading police investigators through a re-enactment of the killings when dozens of residents attacked him with sticks and knives, security officials said.

Police rushed Msallem to the intensive care unit of a nearby hospital, but residents broke in, dragged him out and pounded him with sticks.

Vigilante attack: Hundreds of Lebanese villagers gather around the hanging body of Egyptian Mohammed Msallem after he was stabbed to death and paraded through town

A security official said police at the scene could not stop the attackers, who blocked streets in the village to prevent police reinforcements from reaching the scene.

After killing Msallem, the attackers stripped his bloody body down to the victim's underwear and drove it through town on a car hood, with several local men standing on the hood cheering.



They then hanged the body from a pole in the centre of town as hundreds of residents cried 'Allahu Akbar,' or God is great. Some villagers even took photos of the dead man with their mobile phones.

Shocking: Lebanese women take pictures of the dead murder suspect with their mobile phones

Looking on: The villagers attacked Msallem after he was arrested on suspicion of murdering two girls and their grandparents

His body hung from the pole for about ten minutes before Lebanese army troops took him down and drove him away in a jeep.

The rare mob attack shocked many, and security officials said police who were escorting the man at the time were unable to prevent the killing in the Chouf mountain town of Ketermaya.

Interior Minister Ziad Baroud ordered an investigation and said such vigilante justice was 'extremely dangerous'.

Exit: A Lebanese soldier removes the body from the scene and takes it away in an army truck

Security officials said Msallem had confessed to killing the four family members, but the motive was not immediately clear.



One official said Ketermaya residents also believed Msallem had raped a 15-year-old local girl a month earlier, but that report could not be independently confirmed.

There was no immediate word of arrests in the attack.



Crime has been on the rise in Lebanon but such vigilante mob killings have been rare since the end of the 1975-90 civil war, during which political violence was common.