Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday said he hopes the latest political, sectarian and legal controversy will not impede the ongoing probe into the catastrophic Beirut port explosion.
“Let’s not forget that it destroyed half of the capital and left 200 people dead, 5,000 wounded and thousands homeless, which prompted world countries to scramble to aid the affected, while our state, those in power and politicians stood idly by,” al-Rahi said in his Sunday Mass sermon.
“We also hope that the reactions will not create a national rift on a sectarian basis, for which we cannot find a justification, especially that we are all keen on the premiership post and the rest of the constitutional, national and religious posts,” he added.
“Keenness on all these posts is not supposed to contradict with the course of justice, seeing as the immunity of these posts stems from the immunity of the judiciary. The judiciary protects them all while they should be under the law like any ordinary citizen,” al-Rahi went on to say.
He also stressed that Bkirki “does not cover anyone and does not interfere in any judicial probe.”
The controversy erupted after the lead judicial investigator charged caretaker PM Hassan Diab and three ex-ministers with negligence in the ongoing probe into the port disaster.