DEARBORN — A Lebanese man living in Dearborn and selling ice cream from a truck to earn a living was arrested Tuesday, July 15, on an immigration charge and can now face deportation. 

Mahmoud Bazzi, 71, had widely been known around the local community to have been linked to the murders of two Irish soldiers in Lebanon in 1980. However, the Detroit Office of U.S. Immigrations and Customs said his arrest is unrelated to those accusations.

Bazzi’s arrest stems from entering the country on a false passport 21 years ago from Lebanon. Since residing in the U.S., he has earned a living by driving an ice cream truck around Dearborn and Detroit neighborhoods.

Bazzi had previously been linked to the murders of two soldiers through an interview he had conducted for a Lebanese television prime time program, where he reportedly admitted that he had conducted the killings. 

The two Irish soldiers were assigned to a United Nations peacekeeping mission along the southern Lebanese-Israeli border. In the late 1970s, Lebanon was in the middle of a civil war and the UN installed a peacekeeping force near the Israeli border after Israel had invaded from the south after being attacked. Israeli troops retreated when the UN became involved.

During the interview, Bazzi had claimed the killings were conducted to avenge the death of his younger brother, who was supposedly killed by Irish troops just days earlier.

Once families and friends of the slain soldiers, Derek Smallhorne and Thomas Barrett, got wind of the fact that Bazzi had moved to the U.S., they took measures to contact authorities and publicly questioned why he was allowed residency in this country. Despite the outcries, no action was taken against him until this week. 

Bazzi speaks little to no English and has publicly denied any involvement in the murder of the soldiers during his time here in the U.S. He conducted several interviews with the Detroit Free Press, claiming that the accusations were false, and that he had only made those claims in Lebanon due to pressure by a commander who threatened to kill his family if he didn’t do so. 

However, according to the Detroit Free Press, two eyewitnesses — including an American journalist who was abducted and later released — claim Bazzi and a group of men abducted them, along with the two soldiers, and took them to an abandoned school. 

The witnesses claim Bazzi’s group left them behind after forcing the two soldiers into a vehicle and driving off. Their bodies were found later that day — tortured and shot to death. 

Fourteen years ago, journalists from an Irish news program confronted Bazzi on his front lawn. He told them he’d been at the scene in Lebanon, but that he’d left before the murders took place.

Khaalid Walls, a spokesman for the Detroit Office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to say if Bazzi will be charged with the alleged torture killings in Lebanon.