The relaunching this week of the investigation into the August 2020 Beirut port blast triggered an unprecedented impasse with the lead judicial investigator and top prosecutor slapping charges against each other. Critics called it a “farce”, but for families of the victims still seeking justice, the parody is wrenching and frustrating.
The investigation into the August 4, 2020, Beirut port blast, which killed 220 people, descended into a legal tug of war this week between Lebanon's prosecutor general, Ghassan Oweidat, and Judge Tarek Bitar, the investigating judge assigned to probe one of the largest non-nuclear blasts in history.
