Archbishop of Haifa and the Holy Land of Palestine meets with President Michel Aoun Friday. (Credit: LBPresidency Twitter)
BEIRUT — The dismissal of Judge Fadi Akiki is “outside my competence as a minister,” said the caretaker Minister of Justice Henri Khoury on Friday.
Here’s what we know:
• After the arrest of Archbishop of Haifa and the Holy Land, Moussa al-Hage, in South Lebanon’s Ras al-Naqoura following his return from Haifa, the patriarchate was indignant and demanded the dismissal of Akiki, the government commissioner to the interim Military Tribunal which was behind his arrest.
• On Monday, General Security members at the southern border post of Ras al-Naqoura, on the orders of the government commissioner at the Military Court Akiki, arrested Hage as he was returning “as usual from his bishopric in the Holy Land.”
• Hage was detained for 12 hours, interrogated, and had his Lebanese passport and his cell phone confiscated, the statement said, adding that medical and cash aid he had “transported on behalf of some needy and sick in Lebanon from all communities” was also confiscated. This aid, the statement said, was “sent by Lebanese and Palestinian benefactors because the government has not run the country well and haven’t ensured the basic needs [of its citizens].”
• “I followed the affair with the Patriarch Bechara al-Rai,” declared Justice Minister Khoury to local news station MTV. “The magistrates govern themselves and the decision on a possible dismissal of the judge is outside my competence as Minister of Justice, which is defined. I do not investigate, I do not judge," he insisted.
• In an exclusive interview with L'Orient-Le Jour, Hage called the incident a "very dangerous precedent", aimed "to send a strong message to Patriarch Rai.”