A worker sits in the Beirut Port, facing the silos destroyed by the double explosion of Aug. 4, 2020, on June 27, 2024. (Credit: Mohammad Yassin/L'Orient-Le Jour)
The Bulgarian judiciary on Thursday rejected the request for release and subsequent appeal filed by Igor Grechuchkine, the presumed owner of the vessel Rhosus, which carried ammonium nitrate from Georgia and unloaded it in Beirut in 2014, material that was at the origin of the double explosion at the Lebanese capital’s port on Aug. 4, 2020.
A judicial source confirmed to L'Orient-Le Jour on Friday that a request submitted a few days earlier had been rejected.
Beirut is still awaiting the hearing scheduled for the extradition request of the Russian-Cypriot national, who was arrested in Bulgaria at the beginning of September.
Grechuchkine was subject to an Interpol red notice requested by Lebanon, which issued a default arrest warrant for him in October 2020.
The extradition request was submitted at the beginning of September. The investigative judge at the Court of Justice in charge of the double explosion case, Tarek Bitar, recently announced his intention to seek authorization to question the presumed owner of the Rhosus if this request were rejected.
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