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Posted on: Friday, January 27, 2023 – 10:21 PM | Last update: Friday, January 27, 2023 – 10:21 PM
Today, Friday, the caretaker Prime Minister in Lebanon, Najib Mikati, stressed the importance of achieving justice in the Beirut Port explosion file, and clarifying the truth and accountability.
Mikati stressed “the need for the judiciary to reform itself,” according to an official statement issued today.
He said, “I made the necessary contacts, as required by the circumstances and the limits of separation between the two executive and judicial authorities, and I called on those concerned with the judiciary, led by Minister of Justice Henry Khoury and President of the Supreme Judicial Council, Judge Suhail Abboud, to address the issue and the repercussions within the judicial body, because the file should not be dealt with or treat it with politics.
It is noteworthy that the Lebanese judiciary is witnessing a dispute between the judicial investigator in the crime of the Beirut port explosion, Judge Tariq Al-Bitar, and the Public Prosecutor, Judge Ghassan Oweidat.
An explosion shook the port of Beirut on August 4, 2020, and resulted in damage to a number of streets in the capital, killing more than 230 people, injuring more than 6,000 people, and leaving 300,000 people homeless.
Regarding the cabinet sessions, Mikati affirmed, “on the course of holding the sessions for urgent issues that alleviate the Lebanese people’s crisis.”
He announced that he would call “to hold a session of the Council of Ministers next week to discuss the file of the educational sector and its emergency conditions.”
And he believed that “Lebanon is experiencing a great crisis and difficult hardship, but despite that we should not flog ourselves, and the country’s revival is not impossible because there are still ingredients and capabilities that can contribute to a solution if we all agree and cooperate to advance the country.”
He stated that in 2022, “goods worth $19 billion were imported.”
Mikati stated that he would not leave an opportunity except to seize it to “improve the situation in Lebanon,” adding: “At the present time, I am conducting intensive contacts with those concerned to address the deterioration in the exchange rate of the lira against the dollar, and to seek to control the chaos that is occurring in this regard.”
