Lebanon: Justice orders seizure of property of two MPs accused in port explosion

Justice ordered Wednesday, August 10 the temporary seizure of the property of two deputies accused in the case of the deadly explosion which destroyed the port of Beirut two years ago.

“

,” a judicial source told AFP.

The court decision was issued in the context of a complaint filed by the Beirut Bar Association with the Civil Court of First Instance in the capital to question the two MPs Ali Hassan Khalil (former Minister of Finance) and Ghazi Zeaiter (former Minister of Public Works and Transport

for having "

", added the same source. worth 100 billion pounds.

twenty complaints

Following the tragedy of August 4, 2020 at the port of Beirut, the bar had launched legal proceedings against the State on behalf of nearly 1,400 families of victims of the explosion, which destroyed the port and several districts of the capital, leaving more than 200 dead and 6,500 injured.

MPs Khalil and Zeaiter are members of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri's Amal party.

Read alsoLebanon: on the port of Beirut, the silos threaten to ignite again

The politicians involved filed a total of 20 complaints against Judge Tareq Bitar for obstructing the investigation, forcing him to suspend his investigations on several occasions.

The investigation has been suspended since the end of December.

Politicians on all sides refuse to be questioned by the judge, whom the powerful Hezbollah accuses of politicizing the investigation, even if the authorities blamed the tragedy, which destroyed entire districts of Beirut, on storage without precautionary measures huge amounts of ammonium nitrate.

On the second anniversary of the tragedy, relatives of the victims called for an international investigation into the causes of the explosion, described as one of the largest non-nuclear events ever recorded in the world.

The causes are still unknown, as is the identity of those responsible, in a country where impunity very often reigns.