Najeeb Sayeb Hashem

Description

Shortly after two o’clock in the afternoon of 16 September 1982, the secretary of the Kuwaiti Embassy in Madrid, Najeeb Sayeb Hashem, left the diplomatic headquarters to walk to his official car, accompanied by the embassy driver and his bodyguard and private chauffeur. As he was about to get into the vehicle, an individual appeared and shot him from behind, hitting him three times in the back and once in the head. As soon as the shooting started, the diplomat’s two companions dropped to the ground to avoid the bullets, but the embassy driver was wounded in the shoulder. The bodyguard was unharmed and was able to fire several shots at the assailant before he fled. He then drove the dying diplomat in his own car to La Paz Hospital, but he was dead on arrival.

Security forces attributed the attack to Al-Fatah. The perpetrator, 28-year-old Lebanese national Ibrahim Hasan Murad Al Sami, was arrested minutes after firing the shots. He admitted that he had planned to kill the Kuwaiti ambassador, but had mistaken him for the embassy secretary.