BEIRUT: Lebanon’s top prosecutor Tuesday cleared a Syrian-flagged ship for release after it was seized over allegations by Kyiv’s embassy in Beirut that it carried flour and barley stolen from Ukraine, an official said.
Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat allowed the Laodicea, which docked in the northern port city of Tripoli last week, to set sail after investigations failed to prove it carried stolen goods, a judicial official told AFP.
“Preliminary investigations... did not reveal the existence of a criminal offense, or that the goods were stolen,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
Ukraine’s embassy in Lebanon had claimed that the grain aboard the ship was loaded from a region occupied by Russian forces and said it presented Lebanese authorities with proof that the merchandise was stolen.
Ukraine has repeatedly accused Moscow’s forces of ransacking its grain warehouses since Russia invaded the country in late February.
On Saturday, Oueidat ordered the vessel’s seizure and instructed police to investigate.
The prosecutor found that the grain aboard the vessel belonged to a Syrian merchant, the judicial official said.
“The Syrian national whose name is on the shipment from Ukraine came in for investigation and presented the papers and documents that prove his ownership,” the official said on Tuesday.
Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, has this week tentatively resumed grain exports following a UN-backed deal.
A Sierra Leone-registered ship, Razoni, set sail from Odessa port for Lebanon Monday under an accord brokered by Turkey and the United Nations that seeks to release millions of tons of trapped Ukrainian produce to world markets and curb a global food crisis.
The Marine Traffic website showed the vessel — which is carrying 26,000 tons of maize — off the coast of Bulgaria by 0900 GMT on Tuesday.
Lebanon, which is struggling with one of the world’s worst financial crises, is facing a particularly acute bread shortage.
Lebanon prosecutor allows departure of ship accused by Ukraine of stealing grain
https://arab.news/w4dtk
Lebanon prosecutor allows departure of ship accused by Ukraine of stealing grain
- Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat allowed the Laodicea to set sail after investigations failed to prove it carried stolen goods
- “Preliminary investigations... did not reveal the existence of a criminal offense, or that the goods were stolen”
Sudan paramilitary drone strike on school kills two children: medical source
- Since it began, the war has killed tens of thousands and left around 11 million people displaced
KHARTOUM: A drone strike blamed on Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces killed two children and injured 12 others Wednesday in the southern city of El-Rahad, a medical source told AFP.
El-Rahad lies in Sudan’s Kordofan region, currently the fiercest battlefield in the war raging between the RSF and the regular army since April 2023.
“I saw a dozen students injured,” Ahmed Moussa, an eyewitness to the attack, told AFP, adding that the drone had struck a traditional Qur'anic school.
El-Rahad, in North Kordofan state, was retaken by the army last February, as part of a rapid offensive that saw it push west to break a long-running siege on state capital El-Obeid.
The RSF has been trying to re-encircle El-Obeid since, including by launching successive drone strikes on the main highway out of the city, which connects the western region of Darfur with the capital Khartoum.
Since it began, the war has killed tens of thousands and left around 11 million people displaced, creating the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.
It has also effectively split the country in two, with the army holding the north, center and east while the RSF and its allies control the west and parts of the south.
