Beirut's port following the Aug. 4 explosion. Credit: AFP)
On Thursday, Jamal Hajjar, Acting Public Prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, received five representatives of relatives of victims of the double explosion at the port of Beirut on August 4, 2020.
Contacted by L'Orient-Le Jour, one of them, William Noun, said that he and the other relatives of the victims, Pierre Gemayel, Cecile Roukoz, Mariana Fodoulian and Elie Bou Saab, wanted to convey to the prosecutor their "commitment to reactivating the investigation file," recalling that the investigation had been suspended during the term of office of his predecessor, Ghassan Oueidat. The latter had forbidden the public prosecutor's office and the security services from receiving or executing any decision issued by the investigating judge at the Court of Justice, Tarek Bitar. In response, Hajjar told his interlocutors of his "concern to apply the law," said Noun, adding that the head of the public prosecutor's office "did not want to go into the details" of the case.
This article originally appeared in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.