The judicial investigator in the Beirut Port Explosion‘s case, Judge Tareq Bitar, questioned the former member of the Higher Council of Customs, Hani Hajj Shehadeh, after which he decided fit to issue an arrest warrant against him.
The questioning of Shehadeh ran for six continuous hours and was conducted in the presence of his attorney Antoine Klimus, a former president of the Beirut Bar Association (1997-1999), and representatives of the law syndicate.
Klimus told Al-Jadeed afterward will a request for the release of his client will be submitted “at the first opportunity, pending the completion of a number of interrogations in the coming days.”
Hani Hajj Shehadeh, a former member of the Higher Council of Customs, has been on the list of suspects since November of last year when the State Prosecutor Ghassan Khoury filed charges against him, along with former customs chief in Beirut Moussa Hazimeh.
At the time, the number of people charged over the Beirut Port explosion reached 33.
Shehadeh and Hazimeh, who were questioned as witnesses early in the investigation, were then referred to the first Judicial Investigator Judge Faid Sawwan, who was then forced to resign under intense political pressure.
No more details have been made public, as of yet, in regards to Judge Bitar’s findings against Shehadeh during this 6-hour questioning.
