The Lebanese civil war between Christians and Moslems in the 1980s helped cover the traces of a double murder in Beirut. That was why it took four years to bring Ibrahim Tarraf to justice for the 1979 killing and decapitation of his landlady, Mrs. Mathilda Bahour and her son Marcel.

At his trial the defence claimed he was insane. The prosecution argued that the killing was sectarian, since the victims were Christian and Tarraf was a Moslem. He was publicly hanged on Thursday, April 7th, 1983, in Sanayeh Park, in Beirut city centre, before a small crowd of onlookers.