A friend of murdered Rebecca Dykes has revealed her agony after picking the bar the British diplomat visited before she was killed by an Uber driver in Beirut.
Reporter Bethan McKernan said she had recommended a bar that Ms Dykes, 30, visited before she was abducted in the Lebanese capital on Friday night.
The embassy worker’s body was reportedly found in a dumpster by the roadside on Saturday evening before taxi driver Tarek Hesso, was arrested in a 3am raid on Monday.
Ms McKernan revealed she had been hit by two tragedies in four months, having also known Swedish reporter Kim Wall who was found dismembered after boarding a Danish inventor’s submarine in August.
A friend of murdered Rebecca Dykes (pictured) has revealed her agony after picking the bar the British diplomat visited before she was killed by an Uber driver in Beirut
Reporter Bethan McKernan said she had recommended a bar that Ms Dykes (pictured), 30, visited before she was abducted in the Lebanese capital on Friday night
Rebecca Dykes was said to have been at a leaving party at the Demo nightclub (pictured) in Beirut before she went missing
Ms McKernan wrote on Twitter: ‘For the 2nd time in 4 months, I am dealing with the horrific murder of a female friend.
‘I am still grieving for Kim [Wall] and now I have to think about how I suggested this particular bar on Friday. I’m so sorry, Becky, for the violence men inflict on us.’
Ms Dykes is said to have been at a leaving party at the Demo nightclub in Beirut before she went missing.
According to Lebanon’s NNA agency, Hesso admitted picking the diplomat up in his taxi, attempting to rape her and then strangling her before ditching her body.
The body of the former public schoolgirl was found by a motorway on Saturday evening several miles from the nightspot where she was last seen alive.
Investigators told MailOnline Hesso is 35 but a second senior security official in Lebanon said the suspect was aged 41 and had been arrested on drug-related charges in the period 2015-17.
Ms Dykes (pictured) started working for the government in 2010 and started working as a programme and policy manager in Lebanon since January
NNA said the suspect picked up Ms Dykes from Beirut’s Gemayze neighborhood, known for its restaurants and pubs, then drove to a nearby neighborhood where she lived but did not drop her off there.
Her friend Ms McKernan, a Middle East reporter with The Independent, also revealed that she knew Swedish journalist Kim Wall.
Last month, Danish police said divers had found a second arm in the area where the rest of Ms Wall’s body pars were discovered after she was killed onnoard an inventor’s submarine.
The second arm, found in Koge Bay off Copenhagen, had been weighed down in a similar way as a left arm found a week earlier, the Copenhagen police said in a statement.
‘We therefore assume that the arm is connected to the submarine case,’ Copenhagen police chief investigator Jens Moller Jensen said in the statement.
In a grisly case that shocked the public, it has taken Danish authorities months to find 30-year-old Wall’s body parts since she vanished after interviewing Danish inventor Peter Madsen, 46, on his homemade submarine on August 10.
Ms McKernan revealed she had been hit by two tragedies in four months, having also known Swedish reporter Kim Wall (pictured) who was found dismembered after boarding a Danish inventor’s submarine in August
Wall’s legs, torso and head, all found near Koge Bay, had also been weighed down with attached metal objects.
Madsen, who in October admitted dismembering Wall’s corpse, is suspected of murdering her.
But he has denied the allegations and said he does not know how she died. He has told police she died below deck while he was up on deck.
Prosecutors have previously said they believe Madsen killed Wall as part of a sexual fantasy, then dismembered her body and threw her remains into the sea.