Obits in Brief: Amin al-Hafez

The former Lebanese Prime Minister Amin al-Hafez, who served a turbulent two-month term in 1973 before he was forced to resign, died in Beirut on 13 June at the age of 83.

A Sunni Muslim, he was chosen by the then President Suleiman Franjieh to form a government in 1973. Although the prime minister's job is reserved for a Sunni under Lebanon's sectarian power-sharing system, Sunni religious leaders who opposed Franjieh refused to recognise the appointment. Al-Hafez was forced to resign about two months later. The crisis contributed to the tensions that burst into civil war in 1975.

Al-Hafez later served as a member of parliament, representing his home town of Tripoli until 1996.