The Lawyers’ Syndicate Prosecution Team in Beirut slammed the MPs who refused to appear in front of Judge Tarek Bitar, the judicial investigator of the Beirut Blast, accusing them of disrupting the investigation for seven months.
According to Asharq Al-Awsat, the legal team sued the MPs Ali Hassan Khalil and Ghazi Zaiter, who have a tight relationship with the Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri.
The legal representative team accused the MPs of “abuse of right”, and wants them to pay fines.
The team also asked the court to find the residency of the MPs because they tried several times to reach them to no avail.
They also mentioned that they were unable to inform the MPs of the dates of the investigation sessions and asked to obligate them to pay high financial compensation to the families of the victims.
The plaintiffs also asked the court to authorize them to send e-mails that include details about the dates of the hearings or to publish the details in the newspapers and other media outlets.
However, a judicial source revealed that the court has assigned the head of the registrar to conduct an administrative investigation, to determine the residences of the aforementioned.
He admitted that the employee who is responsible for notifying the MPs of the dates of sessions had found difficulty in reaching them since he was forbidden from entering the Parliament’s headquarters.
The source also added that due to the high-security protection at the MPs’ houses, the employee couldn’t inform the politicians.
In addition, the judicial source stated: “The problem is not in the work of the judiciary, but in some legal texts that restrict judges and force them to abide by their requirements.”