An Uber driver in Lebanon has been sentenced to death for the murder of a British diplomat two years ago.

Rebecca Dykes was found strangled and dumped by the side of a motorway in east Beirut in December 2017.

Tariq Houshieh confessed to raping and strangling the 30-year-old Dykes, who worked at the embassy for Britain’s Department for International Development.

Lebanese judges routinely call for death sentences in cases of murder. But the country has an unofficial moratorium and has not carried out an execution since 2004, according to the monitoring group Human Rights Watch.

It is believed Dykes had been at a colleague’s leaving party in the Gemmayzeh district of Beirut on the night before she was found dead.

Dykes, a University of Manchester graduate, also had a masters in International Security and Global Governance from Birkbeck, University of London.

She was a former pupil of Malvern Girls’ College and Rugby School and had spent time at a Chinese International School.

Her family launched a charity foundation to support her humanitarian causes, including supporting refugees, with a particular focus on empowering and preventing violence against women.