Judicial investigator Judge Tarek Bitar has set dates for questioning three Lebanese MPs over the Beirut Port Explosion, Al-Jadeed reported on Tuesday.
Judge Bitar is set to interrogate MPs Nohad Machnouk, Ghazi Zaiter, and Ali Hassan Khalil over the case on October 30th and November 1st, according to the information.
Zaiter and Khalil, both former ministers, were previously charged with negligence by the judge in relation to the devastating August 4th Explosion, alongside former Prime Minister Hassan Diab and former Minister Youssef Fenianos.
On a side note, MP Machnouk served as Interior Minister in ex-PM Tammam Salam’s 2014 and again in ex-PM Saad Hariri’s 2016 government.
Last week, Judge Bitar issued an arrest warrant in absentia for Fenianos after the latter had failed to show up to a questioning session due on the same day.
He also issued a second subpoena for former PM Diab after summoning him for questioning, after which Diab left Lebanon for the U.S.
The investigation into the deadly August 4th Blast is ongoing more than a year later, without yielding any results yet, despite previous reports indicating that Judge Bitar was aiming for the period between September and October to deliver his findings.
