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Beirut (AFP) – A French investigative judge is visiting Lebanon this month to inquire about information requested by the French judiciary about the Beirut port explosion, for which he did not receive answers, a judicial official told AFP on Wednesday.
The investigation into the explosion that occurred on August 4, 2020, has been pending since the end of 2021 due to lawsuits filed successively by defendants, including current MPs and former ministers, against the judicial investigator, Judge Tariq Al-Bitar, who supervises the investigations.
The judicial official said, “A French investigative judge will visit Lebanon on January 23, to meet Judge Subuh Suleiman, the discriminatory public attorney who is following up the port file on the part of the Public Prosecution, the next day.”
He added, “The French judge intends to ask about judicial letters sent to Lebanon as part of an investigation in France about the port explosion,” noting that the Lebanese side will inform him that “he has not received answers, since the Lebanese investigation is still pending.”
Caretaker Minister of Justice Henry Khoury confirmed in a press conference on Wednesday the date of the visit, explaining that the arrangements related to it and how to deal with it are up to the Public Prosecution at the Court of Cassation.
About a week after the explosion, the Public Prosecution Office in Paris assigned two investigative judges in the Mass Accidents Department to investigate the port explosion, given the presence of Frenchmen among the victims. A judicial investigation was opened on charges of “manslaughter” and “unintentional injury”.
There are at least two French dead and more than ninety wounded, among the more than 215 dead and 6,500 wounded by the explosion.
The explosion on August 4, 2020, according to the authorities, resulted from the storage of large quantities of ammonium nitrate inside the port without preventive measures, following the outbreak of a fire whose causes are unknown. It turned out later that officials at several levels were aware of the dangers of storing the substance and did not move a finger.
The suspension of the investigation in Lebanon and the repeated political interventions fuel the anger of a number of families of the victims of the explosion, who organized a protest stand on Tuesday in front of the Palace of Justice in Beirut. Human rights organizations are also calling on the United Nations to send an independent fact-finding mission, in the face of the faltering of the local investigation.
© 2023 AFP