Lebanon taxi driver gets death sentence for murder of British diplomat

A Lebanese court sentenced Uber driver Tariq Houshieh to death on Friday for the murder of British diplomat Rebecca Dykes in December 2017, state news agency NNA reported.

Houshieh confessed to raping and strangling the 30-year-old Dykes, who worked at the embassy for Britain's Department for International Development.

The Mount Lebanon criminal court sentenced the accused to death for the rape and murder of the young British woman, the agency said.

The 30-year-old's lifeless body was found dumped on the side of a road north of Beirut in December 2017.

The driver employed by ride-hailing giant Uber was reported by judicial sources at the time as having been arrested twice prior to the murder for alleged harassment and theft.

Lebanese judges routinely call for death sentences in cases of murder. But the country has an unofficial moratorium and has not carried out an execution since 2004, according to the monitoring group Human Rights Watch.