Judicial investigator Judge Tarek Bitar has issued an arrest warrant for former Lebanese Public Works Minister Youssef Fenianos over the Beirut Port Explosion.
Judge Bitar issued the warrant in absentia on Thursday after Fenianos failed to show up to a questioning session due on the same day.
The judge, who has summoned several officials and security officers for interrogation over the Beirut Blast, had rejected the defense presented by Attorney-General Judge Ghassan Khoury with regard to Fenianos.
Commenting on the arrest warrant, Fenianos’s attorney, Nazih Khoury, told LBCI that he was assessing the next possible moves.
“After the legal violations that we monitored today in the judicial investigator’s decision, we are studying the available legal options that we can take,” he said.
Objecting to political interference with the work of Judge Bitar, families of Beirut Blast victims held a new protest in front of the Justice Palace in Beirut on Thursday, demanding that Prime Minister Najib Mikati supports them and the judge in serving justice.
Fenianos was charged with negligence in relation to the August 4th Explosion last December, alongside former Prime Minister Hassan Diab and two other former ministers, MP Ali Hassan Khalil, and MP Ghazi Zaiter.
While Khalil and Zaiter retain their immunity as MPs, Diab has flown to the U.S. despite having been due for a questioning session earlier this week.
Until recently, Fenianos, who does not currently hold any office, only had his immunity as a lawyer between himself and prosecution.
