The complaint of the judicial investigator of the Al-Marfa crime: the vulnerability of Hassan Diab

Four months have passed since Judge Fadi Sawan assumed the role of judicial investigator in the port attack. It did not provide a new addition to the investigation that was conducted in the media. The media guide him in his accusations. Try everything you can to satisfy public opinion. Although he did not reveal anything new in the investigations, Sawan decided to raise the ceiling of the prosecution to garner greater applause to protect himself from the attack on his shaky performance, even if that was at the expense of the oppressed of the weak who have no political support.

Yesterday, Sawan asked to hear Interim Prime Minister Hassan Diab, former Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, and former Labor Ministers Yusef Fenianos and Ghazi Zuaiter as defendants, as well as the Director General of State Security, Major General Tony Saliba, who He also interrogated him for 3 hours as a defendant. Many, including jurists, politicians and citizens, believe that the investigator did the right thing in claiming four political officials and one security official. But what about the others? It was not understood why Sawan chose the current prime minister and 3 former ministers. If the current prime minister is a perpetrator, a negligent or a negligent, then this inevitably means that the ministers in his government will also be compromised and negligent. And if the responsibility falls on former ministers, why did he exclude former prime ministers?
What is proven is beyond any doubt that the fearsome judicial investigator weakened Hassan Diab to question him as a defendant. Sawan, who had not previously dared to reject the request of “Palace Justice Minister” Salim Jreissati, to withdraw the file of the crime of Qabreshmoun, resorted to the complaint at that time to his fellow judges that he was forced to leave The file. Sawan himself shuddered at a media “onslaught” in which he revealed his decision to approve the request to transfer Director General of Customs Badri Daher to a customs prison, so he quickly backed down and issued a contrary decision.
After the “scoop” of the media, Sawan seeks to protect himself, not by doing justice, but by creating a scapegoat. The judicial investigator who fears the media decided to arrest people who are not guilty, to appear in public with the eyes of the powerful, but the repercussions of the injustice he commits have turned against him. Sawan weakened 3 officers without daring to touch his superiors. If the officer, Joseph Al-Naddaf, deserves to be imprisoned, then the requirement of justice is to imprison his boss, Major General Tony Saliba. And if General Security Officers Charbel Fawaz and Daoud Fayyad are negligent, the first thing to do is question their General Manager, Major General Abbas Ibrahim. The injustice towards the two imprisoned Public Security agents is clear. General Security does not have authority for the content of the rooms in the port, nor for the movement of goods. His work is limited to the movement of people in and out of Lebanon. In addition, the two arrested officers performed their duties perfectly, editing more than thirty correspondence on the ammonium nitrate case.
Why didn’t Sawan summon former army chief Jean Kahwagi? What about former chief of staff Walid Salman, who signed on behalf of Kahwaji, proposing to offer the ammonium nitrate to the Deacon company to buy the goods seized at the port? An unprecedented scandal with the signing of the military leadership. Responsibility is not connected because it is too much? Why was the current army chief, Joseph Aoun, not summoned to ask about the inaction to remove nitrates from the port after the State Security report? Isn’t it the duty of the army leadership to investigate a case of this magnitude? And the judiciary? Why did you ignore that the tons of ammonium nitrate that exploded in the port on August 4 were not transferred from the ship to hangar number 12, six years ago, without an order from a judge who did not decide to destroy or re-export them? Why didn’t Sawan appear before the Judges of the Case Authority, who was not assigned to answer a series of correspondence in this dangerous file?
Sawan Nahar set next Monday as the date for the questioning of the current prime minister and the three former ministers as defendants in the case of the bomb attack in the port of Beirut, after listening to the director general of State Security, Tony Saliba , on the issue of the delay by the State Security Agency in conducting the initial investigation into the presence of nitrate inside Pavilion No. 12 in Puerto. Beirut He also asked about the authorities that Saliba informed him about the content of his report. Although judicial sources confirm that Sawan did not allow Saliba to sit for about three hours, the result was the free departure of the Director General of State Security, and that a junior officer was detained for the fourth consecutive month.

In Sawan’s decision, an affirmative action is built, which confirms the right of the judiciary to persecute presidents and ministers.

It should be noted that after Judge Sawan’s decision, the interim prime minister issued a statement in which he said that “he has a clear conscience and trusts in the cleanliness of his palm and in his responsible and transparent handling of the port explosion file. He is surprised by this targeting that goes beyond the person to the site, and Hassan Diab will not allow the prime minister’s position to be led by either side. The statement added that the judicial investigator was informed of Diab’s response to the request to hear his testimony, highlighting that he is “a man of institutions and respects the law and complies with the constitution that Sawan has violated and bypassed parliament.” Diab concluded his statement by saying that he said what he had in this file and a period on the line. Former Prime Minister Najib Mikati also tweeted: “There is no double standard for justice, and the families of the victims of the attack in the port have the right to know the truth and hold those involved in the crime accountable. How can selectivity be adopted in the prosecution service and ignoring what the President of the Republic said that he had read reports that warn of the presence of dangerous materials in the port? The truth is a comprehensive whole and targeting specific people is not an invention. ”Sawan’s decision to prosecute Diab and the former ministers is expected to raise a lot of political and judicial dust. Regardless of the politicization and poor performance of the judicial investigator , yesterday’s decision by Judge Sawan remains a great positive on which to build in the future, which is the confirmation of the right of the judiciary, once again, to prosecute heads of government and ministers, despite the fact that the immunity is invoked with impunity.

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