Lebanese PM on Port Blast Investigation: I Lifted Immunity for ‘Everyone’

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati told Sky News Arabia on Wednesday that he had signed a bill proposed by the center-right Future Movement that lifts immunity on “everyone” who may be responsible for the August 2020 Beirut port blast that killed more than 200 people and destroyed large areas of the Lebanese capital. Outraged critics and family members of the victims say powerful forces are stonewalling the investigation into what has been described as one of the largest nonnuclear blasts in history, and, more than a year later, little headway has been made. Judge Tarek Bitar’s efforts to question current and former officials, including Hassan Diab, who was prime minister at the time of the blast, other ex-ministers, and top security officials, have repeatedly been brushed off, and no senior government official has been held accountable for the disaster.