Zoaiter and Oueidat refuse to appear before Bitar in port case
Former public works and transport minister Ghazi Zoaiter on Friday failed to appear before Beirut port blast investigator Judge Tarek Bitar, the National News Agency said.
Zoaiter’s lawyer Samer al-Hajj, however, attended the session, NNA added.
“In light of Zoaiter’s failure to show up, the judicial investigator postponed taking a decision against him until the issuance of the indictment,” the agency said.
Former state prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat had on Thursday refused to receive a subpoena summoning him to interrogation before Bitar on July 21, calling the later “ineligible and lacking jurisdiction.”
In a written response, Oueidat considered the subpoena as null and void and said Bitar lacks “legitimacy.”
During his term as state prosecutor, Oueidat had charged Bitar for "rebelling against the judiciary" and slapped him with a travel ban.
Oueidat said that he charged Bitar in order to "prevent sedition." He also summoned Bitar for questioning.
Moreover, Oueidat ordered the release of all suspects detained in connection with the deadly 2020 port blast.
"Security forces' enforcement of the state prosecutor's order to release the detainees will be a coup against the law," Bitar told al-Jadeed at the time. The detainees did walk free after Oueidat’s decision.
"Only the judicial investigator has the right to issue release orders and accordingly Stat Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat's decision has no legal value," Bitar added.
Bitar had resumed work on the port blast investigation after a 13-month hiatus, charging several high-level officials, including Oueidat, over the blast.
The August 4, 2020 explosion, one of history’s biggest non-nuclear blasts, killed more than 220 people, injured thousands and devastated swathes of the Lebanese capital.
The explosion was caused by the detonation of hundreds of tons of poorly-stored ammonium nitrate fertilizer following a blaze.
Security sources initially suggested welding work could have started the fire that triggered the blast, but experts have since dismissed the theory as unlikely and an attempt to shift the blame off high-level failings.
The probe stalled two years ago after Hezbollah accused Bitar of bias and demanded his dismissal, and after officials named in the investigation filed a flurry of lawsuits against him.
The resumption of work comes with Hezbollah's influence weakened after its recent war with Israel and follows the election of a Lebanese president after a more than two-year vacancy.
President Joseph Aoun on Thursday told a delegation from the families of the Beirut port blast victims that he has a “clear commitment” to “unveil the full truth” and “hold accountable all those who caused this tragedy.”
“This is the path to pull our country out of the darkness of corruption and negligence,” Aoun added.
“From now on, the judiciary will take its course, the guilty will be put on trial and the innocent will be acquitted,” Aoun pledged.