Updated 14.35
Immigration officials in the US have arrested a man suspected of murdering two members of the Irish defence forces in Lebanon in April 1980.
Privates Thomas Barrett from Cork and Derek Smallhorne from Dublin were on a United Nations peacekeeping mission when they were abducted and shot dead by the South Lebanon Army.
Mahmoud Bazzi is suspected of carrying out the murders. He was arrested at his home in the state of Michigan yesterday by immigration officials and is facing deportation if he is found to be living illegally in the US.
Private Smallhorne (31), a father of three, and Private Barrett (29), also a father of three, along with Private John O'Mahony (28) were driving a convoy from Tibnin.
Also accompanying the convoy to write about the event was photographer Zaven Vartan and US press reporter Steve Hindy.
On the outskirts of Bint Jbeil village gunmen stopped the convoy and ordered everyone out. The gunmen disarmed the three Irish drivers and confiscated Zaven's camera bag. The vehicles were were taken by the gunmen to an abandoned school.
At the school all seven were questioned about their nationalities. It is reported that Mahmoud Bazzi was there, whose brother who had been killed during the recent clash with the Irish battalion at At-Tiri.
Privates Smallhorne and Barrett bolted from the school into the yard, where they were recaptured. The last that was seen of the two peacekeepers was as they were driven off by Mahmoud Bazzi and two gunmen.
The journalists and Private O'Mahony headed back to Tibnin, were he was then flown to the UNIFIL hospital in Naquora.
Not long after it was announced that the bodies of Private Derek Smallhorne and Thomas Barrett had been found near Bint Jbail.
The families of the dead Irish soldiers have been campaigning for justice and for the extradition of Bazzi so that he can face charges in relation to the murders.
Robbie Masterson was serving in Lebanon at the time that Privates Barrett and Smallhorne were killed.
He talks about the night they were taken.
