In an interview on Al-Jadeed, journalist Sarkis Naoum revealed the reason why former Beirut Blast investigator, Judge Fadi Sawan, stepped down from the case.
“He didn’t back out because he was a coward,” he said, “and he didn’t back out because he did anything wrong.”
According to Naoum, Judge Sawan received a clear mafia-esque threat of bodily harm or even death.
Disclosing this information for the first time, Naoum alleged that Judge Sawan received a slain cat to his doorstep after he pursued the political officials, caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab, and former ministers Ali Hassan Khalil, Ghazi Zeaiter, and Youssef Fenianos.
It wasn’t just any dead cat, Naoum explained, it was deliberately killed and placed in front of Judge Sawan’s residence.
As if a scene from the Godfather trilogy, it was a gruesome warning to the judge to back off and step down if he didn’t want to end up like the slain cat. The issue terrified both the judge and his wife.
Just this week, an explosion occurred in the office of a lawyer working on the Beirut Blast investigation files.
Incidents like these, while terrifying, only attest to the involvement of local people in power in the Beirut Blast, and that Judge Sawan was getting close to discover the truth, like now Judge Bitar who has replaced him and is finally going after political and security figures.
The question remains whether Judge Bitar will be ‘allowed’ to uncover the truth and bring to justice the perpetrators of this most horrific crime committed against Beirut and the Lebanese people.
