Zuaiter and Khalil request the transfer of the case

Major General: Judicial Branch, The council’s office committee also examined Judge Fadi Sawan’s request to summon the wanted deputies for the investigation. According to the information, the commission “detained itself on the constitutional violations committed by Sawan, especially with regard to the obligation to forward the request through the prosecutor to the Minister of Justice and she forwarded it to the House of Representatives, as did Sawan did not send information. And he completed documents to build the accusation, and did not mention all the names of the former Minister of Works and Justice and the deputies required to be questioned. The Minister of Justice will send the Attorney General requesting the complete file to take the necessary actions .

In this file, the two former ministers, Ali Hassan Khalil and Ghazi Zuaiter, were supposed to appear before Judge Sawan, but they did not and will not do so because they did not formally accept the invitation.

According to the information, Deputies Khalil and Zuaiter have not yet received the invitation from the General Secretariat of Parliament, which was sent by Judge Fadi Sawan through the Public Ministry of Cassation. The General Secretariat of the Chamber of Deputies received the invitation and notified it, but according to the rules, it must inform the two previous ministers and return the notification with the approval to the Public Ministry of Cassation, which did not happen.

Some information indicated that the three former ministers, Hassan Khalil, Zuaiter and Youssef Fenianous, the defendants, through their agents, presented a request to transfer Sawan’s case to another judge for “legitimate suspicion as a result of questioning Sawan’s impartiality.” .

MP Zaiter said: After we submitted a request to transfer the case of the judicial investigator, Fadi Sawan, due to legitimate suspicions, we were not informed of any new dates for the sessions before him at any date.

The two ministers Zuaiter and Khalil presented the request to the Criminal Cassation Court, explaining the reasons for the suspicion related to Sawan’s performance of his mission, in terms of lack of objectivity and impartiality, and their desire to obscure the facts, considering that the investigator’s levity led him to a dead end.

The two deputies affirmed their adherence to the provisions of articles 70 and 71 of the constitution, which grant the parliament the functional competence to investigate and accuse us, and then prosecute us – assuming that we have been proven guilty of the performance of our ministerial functions by any act sanctioned by law – successively and exclusively returns to Parliament and the Supreme Council to judge presidents and ministers.

On the other hand, Judge Sawan sent requests for interrogation through the Public Ministry of the interim head of government, Hassan Diab, the general director of State Security, Division General Tony Saliba, and former Minister Yusef Fenianos, to the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers, which responded to the request for an invitation to Fenianos for not having competence for not being a current minister. .

Regarding Major General Tony Saliba, the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers sent the request to Saliba, noting that there is information that indicates that the invitation should be directed through the Supreme Defense Council, since the State Security Directorate is attached to it.

It is noteworthy that the information that circulates that Judge Sawan is moving towards issuing a summons or habeas corpus against the accused is inaccurate so far, since judicial sources confirm that Sawan has not yet made his decision in this regard. But he is determined to carry out his responsibility, and has reportedly set a new date for Ministers Hassan Khalil and Zuaiter on Monday, January 4.

Al-Farzli announced after the council table meeting that “we have been informed of a letter from Judge Sawan, and a decision has been made not to publish it in the media out of respect for the Lebanese judiciary, and we are anxious for doing his job to the fullest. “

Farzli pointed out that “the House of Representatives sent a letter to Judge Sawan, hoping that we will receive a response that includes the file that carries serious suspicions, so that he can base himself on the matter.

He revealed that “the letter we sent to Judge Sawan contains a basic point that we regret addressing parliament as if it neglected the exercise of its constitutional powers,” and asked: “How can parliament be indicted without clear evidence?” He added: We do not doubt that Judge Sawan’s accusation has a political background. We asked him: “Where has the principle of separation of powers become?” We did not find any suspicions, serious or not, about all those mentioned.

Ferzli stressed that “the parliament is obliged to apply the law according to the principles of the prosecution law before the Supreme Council in relation to the file sent by the competent judge.” He continued: “We regard what Judge Sawan did as ‘an oversight’ and we hope that he does, and expressed regret at addressing parliament as if he had forgotten to exercise his constitutional powers.