Relatives of victims of the port explosion demonstrate in front of the Justice Palace on Jan. 10. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine)
In the wake of the deterioration of public institutions, the split within the Higher Judicial Council was no longer a secret. However, it was laid bare on Saturday, when William Noun, the brother of a victim of the August 2020 Beirut port explosion, was arrested and held in custody on the orders of the public prosecutor at the Beirut Appeals Court, Zaher Hamadeh, who is close to the Amal Movement.Notably, two Amal Movement MPs, Ali Hassan Khalil and Ghazi Zeaiter, are implicated in the blast probe.Higher Judicial Council chairman Souheil Abboud appears to be at loggerheads with four other judges — three of them close to the Free Patriotic Movement, and the fourth to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.The conflict comes in the context of differences in the management of the port investigation.Abboud is working to preserve the course of the...
In the wake of the deterioration of public institutions, the split within the Higher Judicial Council was no longer a secret. However, it was laid bare on Saturday, when William Noun, the brother of a victim of the August 2020 Beirut port explosion, was arrested and held in custody on the orders of the public prosecutor at the Beirut Appeals Court, Zaher Hamadeh, who is close to the Amal Movement.Notably, two Amal Movement MPs, Ali Hassan Khalil and Ghazi Zeaiter, are implicated in the blast probe.Higher Judicial Council chairman Souheil Abboud appears to be at loggerheads with four other judges — three of them close to the Free Patriotic Movement, and the fourth to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.The conflict comes in the context of differences in the management of the port investigation.Abboud is working to preserve the course of...