Lebanese sceptical as new judge named to lead port blast probe

Lebanese sceptical as new judge named to lead port blast probe

BEIRUT – Lebanon Friday named a new judge to lead a probe into Beirut's devastating port blast last August, a judicial source said, a day after his predecessor was removed from the case.

“The high judicial council… agreed to caretaker justice minister Mary-Claude Najm's suggestion of appointing Judge Tareq Bitar as lead investigator in the Beirut port blast case,” the source said.

“The council summoned Judge Bitar and informed him of the decision to appoint him, and he accepted.”

Bitar will become the second judge to look into the explosion of hundreds of tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertiliser on August 4 that killed more than 200 people, injured thousands and ravaged swathes of the capital.

Bitar steps into the position after a court on Thursday removed Judge Fadi Sawan from the case, following a complaint from two former ministers charged with negligence over the explosion.

Rights activists condemned the move as the latest example of an entrenched political class placing itself above the law.

Families of people killed in the explosion protested on Friday for a second day, in an outcry over a severe setback to their campaign to hold those in power to account.

Around 70 people gathered in front of Beirut's Palace of Justice on