View of the destroyed silos of the Port of Beirut. (Credit: Anwar Amro/AFP)
BEIRUT — Two former senior port officials, currently detained following the Aug. 4, 2020 Beirut port explosion, filed a complaint to the Sixth Chamber of the Court of Cassation on Wednesday, demanding that the authority to arrest and detain suspects in the case be moved to a judge other than port blast investigation head Tarek Bitar, a legal source close to the case told L’Orient Today.
Here’s what we know:
• The port investigation is currently suspended due to several lawsuits seeking Bitar’s removal. The source said that the detainees who filed the complaint — Hassan Koraytem, former director of the port operating company, and Mohammad Aouf, former head of security within the port operating department — do not seek to remove the whole probe from Bitar’s hands. Rather, the source expressed hope that through this complaint another investigating judge would be appointed to monitor the executive measures of arrest and detention related to the investigation, so that work on these files could proceed while Bitar’s probe is on hold.
• Both Koraytem and Aouf were detained, alongside 23 other port officials, employees and contractors, in the immediate aftermath of the explosion.
• On Tuesday, families of some of the more than 200 people killed by the blast filed a complaint against former ministers Ali Hassan Khalil and Ghazi Zeaiter, against whom Bitar has issued arrest warrants, in order to stop what they say is obstruction of the probe. Khalil and Zeaiter have filed many lawsuits seeking the removal of Bitar, who they accuse of politicizing the investigation, and other judges who have refrained from using their authority to remove Bitar.