BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- A top Sunni militant in Lebanon thought to have been killed remains at large, according to Lebanese authorities.

Shaker al-Abssi speaksing at the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in northern Lebanon, on 13 March 2007.

Lebanon's attorney general's office confirmed that DNA tests on the body of a man thought to be Shaker al-Abssi of Fatah al-Islam have turned out to be negative.

Al-Abssi was thought to be among more than 39 insurgents killed last week as Lebanese forces overtook a Palestinian refugee camp where militants had holed up and staged attacks for months.

Media outlets had been reporting that al-Abssi was among the dead.

Some Lebanese and Syrian officials have cited links between Fatah al-Islam and al Qaeda, but al-Abssi told the Arabic daily newspaper Asharq al-Awsat in March that his group had no "organizational connection" to al Qaeda.

In 2004, a Jordanian military court convicted al-Abssi and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in absentia for the 2002 murder of Laurence Foley, a U.S. diplomat who was gunned down in front of his Amman home.

Al-Zarqawi, who later became leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed in a U.S. airstrike north of Baghdad last year.

Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr repeatedly has said he wants al-Abssi "dead or alive." E-mail to a friend

CNN's Nada Husseini contributed to this report.