The discriminatory public prosecutor in Lebanon, Judge Ghassan Oweidat, is known for his calmness and longsuffering, but what he did, following the decision of the judicial investigator in the Beirut port explosion file, Tariq Al-Bitar, showed the opposite, as he involved the Lebanese judiciary in a war that would add it to the list of collapsed institutions in the country.
What happened to turn Oweidat’s situation upside down?
On the face of it, Oweidat appears to be in the position of defending his powers, as the judicial investigator in the Beirut port explosion file, in his jurisprudence in which he restored to himself the ability to follow up on investigations that were frozen more than thirteen months ago, acquired the powers of the Public Prosecutor at Cassation so that he might The prosecution is once morest senior officials and security leaders, following their political references refused to give permission to pursue them. Apparently this is the case, but in reality, Al-Bitar went further than that, so he claimed Ali Oweidat himself and asked him for an interrogation session.
This allegation would have re-shown light on the role played by the discriminatory public prosecutor in the port explosion file, as he was the reference most familiar with the dangers of the amount of ammonium nitrate stored in a random and dangerous manner, in Ward No. 12 in the port of Beirut, which exploded on the fourth of August.
The war launched by Oweidat once morest Al-Bitar succeeded in obscuring the question regarding the reasons for the claim once morest him, and plunged the country into chaos that the country had never known, even during the time of the Lebanese war that spanned between 1975 and 1990.
Investigations into the port explosion file show that Oweidat had received, three months before the Beirut port explosion, which killed and injured more than six thousand people, a report submitted to him by the port official at the General Directorate of State Security, Major Joseph Al-Naddaf, in which he informed him of the dangerous amount of ammonium nitrate stored in Ward No. 12, in a random manner, and in inappropriate circumstances, so that a gap appears in one of the walls of the ward and its main door suffers from a major defect.
And it was stated in the report, which Oweidat studied, that the amount of ammonium nitrate present is very dangerous, because, if it ignites, it will lead to a huge explosion, “the results of which will be almost devastating to the port of Beirut.”
Despite the importance of what was included in this report, Oweidat contented himself with a request to fix the door and fill the gap, and ordered the closure of the record, that is, to keep the situation as it is.
As a result of Oweidat’s orders, a Syrian welder was brought in to repair the main door, and it was the welding that was rumored to have caused the fire, which spread to the ammonium nitrate and blew it up.
It was not known why Oweidat was late until the eve of August 4, 2010, to issue his instructions, despite the fact that the warning issued by Al-Naddaf was in May 2020.
This question gains its importance from the fact that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon had set, at that time, a date for announcing its expected verdict in the case of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri following three days, i.e. on August 7, 2020.
The explosion and the disasters and tragedies that resulted were overshadowed by the verdict that showed the role of “Hezbollah” in carrying out the Hariri assassination.
It was not natural for officers, employees, and workers to be prosecuted and arrested on charges of negligence in the matter of handling the amount of ammonium nitrate, while the discriminatory public prosecutor, who was not only aware of it, but also appeared active in the decision related to the necessity of dealing with it, remains free, as if he had no camel or camel. , in what all happened.
Oweidat took advantage of his kinship with Representative Ghazi Zuaiter, who was charged in the file, in order to recuse himself from pursuing investigations into the explosion, in order to avoid raising his file by the defendants’ defense attorneys.
In the previous stages of the investigations, the judicial investigator refrained from prosecuting Oweidat, because he was committed to his classic powers, but he found himself, when issuing his latest “revolutionary” jurisprudence, compelled to sue Aweidat and other judges who are usually left to prosecute them in what is attributed to them. From crimes and misdemeanours, to a special court for judges.
The allegation of the judicial investigator Ali Oweidat led him to publicly include him in the system of those affected by the investigation, thus turning himself into a spearhead in an attempt to destroy Al-Bitar, which he had assumed politically, in previous stages, “Hezbollah” through a threat that his official, Wafiq Safa, informed him of. President of the Supreme Judicial Council, Suhail Abboud.
