Lebanon's top prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat. (Credit:Archive photos/L’Orient-Le Jour)
BEIRUT — The President of the High Judicial Council, Souhail Abboud, on Tuesday appointed the President of the seventh Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation, Jamal Hajjar, to the position of Acting Public Prosecutor, replacing Ghassan Oueidat, who will reach retirement age on Thursday. Hajjar will take up his new duties on Friday.
By law, the Attorney General is appointed by a decree adopted by a two-thirds majority of the cabinet and co-signed by the President of the Republic. At present, however, the presidency remains vacant and the caretaker government does not have the power to make appointments that are not part of current affairs.
If Souheil Abboud had not entrusted the post of acting Attorney General to Judge Hajjar, it would have been the highest-ranking magistrate, Nada Dakroub, Attorney General at the Cassation Prosecutor's Office, who would have been appointed.
However, Abboud also appointed Judge Dakroub to head the 8th Chamber of the Court of Cassation (Civil-Litigation-Social Law) on an interim basis, replacing Majed Mzayhem, who retired on Tuesday.
Ghassan Oueidate was in charge of several sensitive cases, including the corruption and money-laundering charges brought against former Banque du Liban governor Riad Salameh. He had withdrawn from the case of the double explosion at the port of Beirut on Aug. 4, 2020, because he was related to MP and former minister Ghazi Zeaiter, who had been implicated by the investigating judge at the Court of Justice, Tarek Bitar. The latter had also implicated Oueidate, who in turn brought charges against him, banned him from traveling, and released the 17 detainees in the case.
The succession of Oueidat was eagerly awaited by the families of the blast victims, in the hope that Tarek Bitar would be able to take over the investigation. The outgoing head of the public prosecutor's office had in fact forbidden the security services from executing the arrest warrants issued by the latter, which had, among other reasons (abusive appeals), contributed to suspending the investigations.