As Lebanon draws closer to the 8th month anniversary of the horrific Beirut blast, Lebanese are often reminded that the investigation that was supposed to take 5 days has still led nowhere.
Over a month since Judge Tarek Bitar was commissioned as the investigating judge, replacing Judge Fadi Sawan, and there is no indication of any progress in the investigation.
Judge Bitar has so far not charged any Lebanese official as Judge Sawan had done. He has made efforts to go after Savaro Ltd, the company that had purchased the ammonium nitrate that exploded at the Beirut Port.
More recently, he brought in Beirut Port customs officials for questioning over the Beirut Port explosion, seemingly a reiteration of that which his predecessor did.
This week, he questioned the former Customs Director at the Beirut Port, Chafic Merhi, in an interrogation that lasted 7 hours.
He also brought in Badri Daher, who was the Customs chief during the time of the explosion. The questioning also lasted 7 hours.
Daher was taken into custody three days after the blast and officially arrested in November last year along with a dozen people.
The Lebanese people, in particular the families of the Beirut blast victims, were promised prompt justice. However, months later, they haven’t gotten a hint of it that could reassure them that this mass-murder won’t go down in history as the previous unresolved high-profile assassination cases.
People are questioning if the Beirut Blast will become one of these cases in which the authorities didn’t dare reveal the truth and bring the perpetrators to justice for political reasons.
