Aoun urges speedy indictment and 'full truth' in port blast case

President Michel Aoun on Friday stressed the need for an indictment to be issued in the Beirut port blast case, adding that the Judicial Council would then “acquit the innocents” and “condemn those responsible.”

Aoun voiced his remarks in a meeting with a delegation from the Aley town of Rishmayya, which raised with him the issue of the detention of Customs chief Badri Daher in the same case.

“There is a need for an indictment to be issued by the investigative judge when he gets liberated from the constraints that are imposed on him, under which the Judicial Council would practice its jurisdiction according to the indictment,” Aoun told the delegation.

The Council would then “acquit the detainees it finds to be innocent and would condemn those responsible at all levels, be them detained or on the loose,” the President added.

“Late justice is not justice,” Aoun stressed, emphasizing that “it’s about time we knew the full truth about the circumstances of the disastrous explosion at Beirut’s port.”

He accordingly urged an end to the “political exploitation, privileges, immunities and legal gaps that are preventing the relevant judicial authorities from practicing prosecution, accusation and condemnation.”

“Injustice is cruel and unacceptable… when justice is reluctant, restrained, partial or selective” due to “political tyranny and spite,” Aoun went on to say.

Daher and several customs, port and security officials have been detained since August 2020 in connection with the port case. Senior officials, including ex-PM Hassan Diab and former ministers Ali Hassan Khalil, Ghazi Zoaiter, Youssef Fenianos and Nouhad al-Mashnouq have meanwhile refused to appear before lead investigative judge Tarek Bitar, citing parliamentary immunity and decrying alleged politicization.