BEIRUT: The judge investigating last year’s deadly Lebanon port blast on Monday rejected a request by MPs for more evidence before immunity for three ex-ministers can be waived, a judicial source said.
Hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer exploded on the dockside at Beirut port last August 4, killing more than 200 people, injuring thousands and ravaging swathes of the capital.
Afterwards, it emerged that officials had known about the explosive substance being stored there unsafely for years.
Coming less than a month before the first anniversary of the tragedy, Monday’s move may mean a new standoff, with fears that the probe could be derailed by political interference.
Earlier this month, lead judge Tareq Bitar said he had demanded that parliament lift the immunity of ex-finance minister Ali Hasan Khalil, former public works minister Ghazi Zaiter and ex-interior minister Nohad Machnouk.
Bitar said he was looking at possible charges of “probable intent to murder” and “negligence.”
Deputy speaker Elie Ferzli said parliament’s administration and justice committee on Friday decided to “request all evidence available in the investigation, as well as all documents that prove suspicions.”
He said the committee would reconvene once it had received a reply, to decide whether or not to waive immunity.
On Monday, the judicial source said no further documents would be forthcoming.
“The investigating judge rejected parliament’s request ... In an official letter he explained that he had already handed over all the documents that needed to be handed over,” the source told AFP.
Lawyer and activist Nizar Saghieh said the committee’s request on Friday went against the separation of powers between the judiciary and the legislature, and “violated the confidentiality of the investigation.”
“They’re just trying to buy time,” he alleged.
On Monday, relatives of victims of the massive blast protested outside Machnouk’s and Zaiter’s homes, demanding that their immunity be lifted, the official ANI news agency reported.
Last month, rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called for a UN investigation into the explosion in light of the stalled investigation.
In February, Bitar’s predecessor as lead judge in the probe was removed by a court, which questioned his impartiality because his home was damaged in the explosion.
The judge had in December issued charges against caretaker prime minister Hassan Diab and three former ministers for “negligence and causing death to hundreds,” triggering outrage from politicians.
Rights activists condemned the court ruling as another example of the country’s entrenched political class placing itself above the law.
Diab stepped down after the blast, but has stayed on as caretaker premier.
The economic crisis that started in the autumn of 2019, sparking mass street protests, has deepened over the past year.
Foreign donors have pledged millions of dollars in aid to the Lebanese people, but stopped short of offering any assistance to the state itself.
Judge in Lebanon blast probe ‘rejects MPs’ immunity move’
https://arab.news/6btpk
Judge in Lebanon blast probe ‘rejects MPs’ immunity move’
- Officials had known about the explosive substance being stored at Beirut port unsafely for years
- Monday's move may mean a new standoff, with fears that the probe could be derailed by political interference
Syria’s Kurdish fighters agree to leave Aleppo after deadly clashes
- Syria’s official SANA news agency reported that “buses carrying the last batch of members of the SDF organization have left the Sheikh Maqsud neighborhood in Aleppo, heading toward northeastern Syria”
ALEPPO: Syria’s Kurdish fighters said Sunday that they agreed under a ceasefire to withdraw from Aleppo after days of fighting government forces in the city.
Hours earlier, Syria’s military said it had finished operations in the Kurdish-held Sheikh Maqsud neighborhood with state television reporting that Kurdish fighters who surrendered were being bused to the north.
The military had already announced its seizure of Aleppo’s other Kurdish-held neighborhood, Ashrafiyeh.
Kurdish forces had controlled pockets of Syria’s second city Aleppo and operate a de facto autonomous administration across swathes of the north and northeast, much of it captured during the 14-year civil war.
The latest clashes erupted after negotiations to integrate the Kurds into the country’s new government stalled.
“We reached an understanding that led to a ceasefire and secured the evacuation of the martyrs, the wounded, the trapped civilians and the fighters from Ashrafiyeh and Sheikh Maqsud neighborhoods to northern and eastern Syria,” the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) wrote in a statement.
Syria’s official SANA news agency reported that “buses carrying the last batch of members of the SDF organization have left the Sheikh Maqsud neighborhood in Aleppo, heading toward northeastern Syria.”
The SDF initially denied its fighters were leaving, describing the bus transfers as forced displacement of civilians.
An AFP correspondent saw at least five buses on Saturday carrying men out of Sheikh Maqsud, but could not independently verify their identities.
According to the SDF statement, the ceasefire was reached “through the mediation of international parties to stop the attacks and violations against our people in Aleppo.”
The United States and European Union both called for the Syrian government and Kurdish authorities to return to political dialogue.
The fighting, some of the most intense since the ousting of long-time ruler Bashar Assad in December 2024, has killed at least 21 civilians, according to figures from both sides, while Aleppo’s governor said 155,000 people fled their homes.
Both sides blamed the other for starting the clashes on Tuesday.
Children ‘still inside’
On the outskirts of Sheikh Maqsud, families who had been trapped by the fighting were leaving, accompanied by Syrian security forces.
An AFP correspondent saw men carrying children on their backs board buses headed to shelters.
Dozens of young men in civilian clothing were separated from the crowd, with security forces making them sit on the ground before transporting them to an unknown destination, according to the correspondent.
A Syrian security official told AFP on condition of anonymity that the young men were “fighters” being “transferred to Syrian detention centers.”
At the entrance to the district, 60-year-old Imad Al-Ahmad was heading in the opposite direction, trying to seek permission to return home.
“I left four days ago...I took refuge at my sister’s house,” he told AFP. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to return today.”
Nahed Mohammad Qassab, a 40-year-old widow also waiting to return, said she left before the fighting to attend a funeral.
“My three children are still inside, at my neighbor’s house. I want to get them out,” she said.
A flight suspension at Aleppo airport was extended until further notice.
‘Return to dialogue’
US envoy Tom Barrack met Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa on Saturday, and afterwards called for a “return to dialogue” with the Kurds in accordance with the integration framework agreed in March.
The deal was meant to be implemented last year, but differences, including Kurdish demands for decentralized rule, stymied progress as Damascus repeatedly rejected the idea.
The fighting in Aleppo raised fears of a regional escalation, with neighboring Turkiye, a close ally of Syria’s new Islamist authorities, saying it was ready to intervene. Israel has sided with the Kurdish forces.
The clashes have also tested the Syrian authorities’ ability to reunify the country after the brutal civil war and commitment to protecting minorities, after sectarian bloodshed rocked the country’s Alawite and Druze communities last year.
