A Syrian woman arrested on suspicion of murdering her husband planned the killing after learning about his plans to marry a second wife in the east of Lebanon, police allege.

 

The 33-year-old woman is accused of murdering her 35-year-old Syrian husband and disposing of his body in a grave dug in the rugged Bekaa Valley region in eastern Lebanon.

 

The woman’s 19-year-old brother has also been charged over his alleged involvement in the killing.

 

Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces said on Thursday that the woman walked into a police station in Zahle on Feb. 25 and claimed that her husband had been missing for five days.

 

Detectives launched an investigation before uncovering the woman and her brother’s involvement.

 

On Tuesday, an ISF squad arrested the brother in a camp in Barr Elias and the woman at her home in Al Ma’allaqa.

 

An ISF official told Arab News: “Investigators suspected her alleged connection after inspecting phone data that also exposed the involvement of her brother.”

 

A prosecutor at the Bekaa attorney-general’s office told Arab News that preliminary investigations “indicate that the brother helped his sister to kill the husband over a family dispute.”

 

According to the ISF, the suspects admitted stabbing the victim while he was sleeping before disposing of his body in a makeshift grave they had dug earlier.

 

The woman claimed she killed her husband because he planned to marry again and accused him of abusing his children, according to the ISF.