UK embassy worker found dead in Beirut, man arrested

Beirut Dec 18 (IANS) A woman who worked at the UK embassy in Lebanon was found dead at the side of a highway here and a man has been arrested over the death the police said.

The body of 30-year-old Rebecca Dykes who had been working at the Department of International Development was found by the side of the Metn highway leading out of the capital in the early hours of Saturday morning the Telegraph reported. A post-mortem suggested she had been strangled and police sources told the daily she had been sexually assaulted. The man identified only by the initials T.H was arrested at 3 a.m. on Monday. He was reported to be a local taxi driver. Dykes from London had been out at a bar on Friday night for the farewell party of an embassy colleague in the central Gemmayzeh neighbourhood of the city. She left with a friend before midnight telling others she had an early flight home to catch for Christmas. The two women parted soon after and it is not clear what happened to Dykes during the four hours before she died around 4 a.m. and her body dumped several miles away on the Metn highway. Security sources told the daily that the murder does not appear to be politically motivated. Dykes had been working in Beirut as the programme and policy manager for the Department for International Development since January. She had worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office since 2010 previously on Libya and Iraq. In a statement her family said: "We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Rebecca. We are doing all we can to understand what happened." Hugo Shorter the British Ambassador to Lebanon said: "The whole embassy is deeply shocked saddened by this news. My thoughts are with Becky s family friends and colleagues for their tragic loss. "We re providing consular support to her family and working very closely with Lebanese authorities who are conducting police investigation." The information branch of Lebanon s internal security forces the intelligence department of the police was conducting the investigation. --IANS soni/bg