The Lebanese Parliament’s Administration and Justice Committee will study on Friday a request to lift the immunity of three MPs, to enable the judicial investigator in the Aug. 4 Beirut port explosion, Judge Tarek Al-Bitar, to question them.
Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah was the first to criticize the work of the judge, hinting at a “political exploitation of the case.”
On Tuesday, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri called for a joint session of the Parliament’s Bureau and the Administration and Justice Committee to be held on Friday at his residence in Ain al-Tineh, to study the request to lift the immunity.
The questioning of the three deputies, Ali Hassan Khalil, Ghazi Zoaiter and Nohad al-Mashnouk, requires the lifting of their immunity from Parliament. The judicial investigator sent a relevant request to the legislature in accordance with the legal mechanisms through the Ministry of Justice.
In comments, Nasrallah said he regretted to be informed of the names of the defendants in the Beirut port case from the media, describing it as “a form of political manipulation that we reject.”
He said he “will leave the comment for another time until the real judicial information arrives, so we can verify the information circulated and leaked in the media.”
Nasrallah’s statement contradicted stances expressed by other political parties, which refused to comment on matters related to the judicial file.
Parliamentary sources in the Lebanese Forces told Asharq Al-Awsat that they refused to engage in any debate or express any position in a judicial or legal case, calling for the independence of the judiciary.
The former head of the Supreme Judicial Council, Judge Ghaleb Ghanem, did not rule out “political influence on judicial affairs in Lebanon.”
