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Fadi Sawan, a judicial investigator in the Beirut port bombing case, suspended investigations for 10 days after two former ministers accused of filing a memorandum calling for the case to be transferred to another judge, he told the AFP a judicial source.
Sawan had filed charges on December 10 against Acting Prime Minister Hassan Diab and three former Ministers, namely former Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil and former Labor Ministers Ghazi Zuaiter and Youssef Fenianos, but none of them appeared before him in the sessions he arranged to question them as defendants.
Zuaiter and Khalil, close to the president of parliament Nabih Berri, presented a memorandum to the Public Ministry of Cassation, requesting that the case be transferred to another judge, after accusing Sawan of violating the constitution by claiming against two former ministers and two deputies of the Parliament.
The judicial source explained that the request was sent to the Criminal Cassation Court, indicating that all parties to the claim, from the Public Prosecutor’s Office, to the judicial investigator and the Bar Association with its agency, for the plaintiffs affected by the explosion, you have ten days to reply to this memorandum (the request).
Consequently, the source stated that Sawan suspended all investigation procedures until the Court of Cassation resolved the request to transfer the case, for which reason a session that was scheduled for Friday to question Diab was canceled, who did not appear in the first session on Monday.
Currently, there is a divergence of views in Lebanon regarding the authority of the authority empowered to prosecute the prime minister, ministers and deputies in the case of the port.
The prosecution raised the objection of several political parties against the four officials, including Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri and Hezbollah.
Opponents of Sawan’s decision consider his claim to constitute a violation of the constitution, especially in terms of constitutional immunity, as ministers are prosecuted through parliament.
Last month, Sawan asked parliament to investigate current and former ministers on suspicion of not working with regard to dealing with the presence of ammonium nitrate in the port. However, Parliament rejected his request, thus initiating the prosecution of the four officials on charges of “negligence, negligence and causing death” and injuring hundreds of people.
The Lebanese authorities are investigating the explosion that occurred on August 4 and attributed it to the storage of huge amounts of ammonium nitrate for years in one of the port’s pavilions without preventive measures. It turned out that officials at various levels were aware of the dangers of storing them without lifting a finger.
The explosion killed more than two hundred people and injured more than 6,500. And it fueled the anger of the street, outraged by the entire political class, accusing it of corruption and negligence, and now holding it responsible for the disaster.
