Judge Tarek Bitar, the lead investigator in the Beirut Blast probe, rejected the Lebanese Premiership’s General Secretariat’s response to the summons of caretaker PM Hassan Diab, Al-Jadeed reported on Thursday.
Judge Bitar considers that the General Secretariat’s claim that he had no power to question the caretaker PM holds no legal value, according to the news outlet.
In light of that, the judge has subpoenaed caretaker PM Diab and set September 20th as the date for his interrogation session.
The caretaker PM, who resigned shortly after the August 4th Beirut Port Explosion last year, was charged alongside three former ministers in December, in relation to the blast.
After defendants had submitted their legal defenses, Judge Bitar resumed his investigation last week and was set to question Diab as a defendant.
معلومات الجديد : المحقق العدلي #طارق_بيطار اعتبر انه لا قيمة قانونية لرد امانة مجلس الوزراء بشأن عدم صلاحيته لاستجواب رئيس الحكومة المستقيل #حسان_دياب واصدر بالتالي مذكرة جلب بحقه وحدد 20 ايلول موعداً للاستماع اليه
— قنـــاة الجـــديـــد (@ALJADEEDNEWS) August 26, 2021
However, the General Secretariat of the Premiership later sent a letter to Judge Bitar, saying that he lacked “the power to interrogate the Prime Minister.”
The letter noted that the file was still in Parliament and that the matter of the allegations against charged MPs and Diab had yet to be resolved.
