Beirut Port investigation: No prosecutor’s office requisitions for two months

It will likely be another two to three months before the Court of Cassation’s prosecutor’s office issues its requisitions in the investigation into the double explosion at the Beirut Port (Aug. 4, 2020), which will be well after the retirement of the public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, Jamal Hajjar, scheduled for April 25.

This is what a judicial source confirmed to L’Orient-Le Jour, noting that the file — submitted to the prosecutor’s office by investigative judge Tarek Bitar at the end of March and comprising several thousand pages — requires significant time to be examined. The same source specified that Judge Hajjar entrusted review of the case to a single magistrate, the deputy prosecutor general at the Court of Cassation, Mohammad Hajjar, which explains the length of the process.

A lawyer who is a member of the complaints bureau formed by the Bar Association to represent the majority of victims said that the follow-up of the case will be assured by Hajjar’s successor, in accordance with the principle of continuity of public service.

The requisitions of the prosecutor’s office — that is, its opinion on the case — which will focus, notably, on the dozens of people implicated, will constitute the final stage before Judge Bitar issues his indictment and transmits it to the Court of Justice. The indictment is expected “a few well-counted weeks” after the prosecutor’s opinion is delivered, according to a magistrate who noted that this opinion is not binding on the investigating judge.