BEIRUT: Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the government is keen not to interfere in any file related to the judiciary, according to a statement from his office on Saturday.
The statement came following a meeting with the justice minister and the head of the higher judicial council after seven people were killed in violence in Beirut on Thursday.
“The judicial authority must take whatever measures it deems appropriate,” Mikati added.
Lebanon’s higher judicial council will meet with Beirut blast probe judge Tarek Bitar on Tuesday to listen to his opinion on the course of the investigation, LBCI TV said in a tweet on Saturday.
The investigation into the Aug. 4, 2020 explosion, one of the biggest non-nuclear blasts in history, has made little headway amid a smear campaign against Bitar and pushback from powerful Lebanese factions, with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah saying Bitar was biased and politicised.
In another development, the head of the Christian Lebanese Forces party (LF) denied on Friday his group had planned street violence in Beirut that killed seven people, and said a meeting held the day before was purely political.
Thursday’s violence, which began as people were gathering for a protest called by Hezbollah against the judge investigating last year’s Beirut port blast, was the worst in over a decade and stirred memories of the country’s ruinous sectarian civil war from 1975-90.
Samir Geagea told Voice of Beirut International radio that a meeting held on Wednesday by a political grouping the LF belongs to had discussed action options should Iran-backed Hezbollah succeed in efforts to remove the judge.
Geagea said the option agreed upon in that event was to call for a public strike, and nothing else. — Agencies
