The head of the “Free Patriotic Movement,” MP Gebran Bassil, stated during a dinner hosted by the movement in honor of lawyers, expressing his pride in heading a movement “whose struggle arenas were distinguished by the free voice that emanated from the Bar Association,” and he praised the historical role played by lawyers in protecting freedoms and achieving justice.
Bassil explained: “We may be as a movement outside the authority, but we are not outside our national responsibilities,” and he affirmed that “justice is not a slogan but a way of life, and the movement wants to restore confidence in justice because it is the foundation of the republic.”
Bassil addressed the issue of the Beirut port explosion, asking with dismay: “How is it permissible that after five years, no indictment has been issued in the case of the port explosion?” expressing his regret for the unjustified delay in this file.
He also touched on the issue of forensic audit, saying: “President Michel Aoun demanded a forensic audit since 2005, and he was not able to impose it until after his election as president in 2020. Is it reasonable, after five years of signing the agreement with the auditing firm, that the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank refrain from submitting the required documents?”
He pointed out that the size of the financial deficit revealed in the accounts of the central bank has reached 72 billion dollars, describing this figure as “expressing the size of the financial disaster that Lebanon is experiencing and the necessity of real accountability.”
Bassil’s statements come in light of the stalemate in the Beirut port explosion file, in which the indictment has not been issued yet despite the passage of five years, in addition to the continued disputes over the forensic audit file between the “Free Patriotic Movement” and the Ministry of Finance, amid mutual accusations of obstructing the implementation of the agreement with the international company in charge of the audit.
source: 961 today
