Monitoring Desk
BEIRUT: Activists gathered outside a police station in the Lebanese capital on Saturday to protest against the arrest of the brother of a victim of a deadly 2020 blast, said witnesses.
William Noun — whose brother was killed in the Beirut port blast — was arrested Friday over remarks made during a television program, a judiciary source told AFP.
The young man – Noun – is a leading figure among the blast’s victim families who have been calling for the continuation of the investigation into the tragic incident, which has been on hold for over a year.
William Noun’s arrest sparked protests Friday night as his relatives, other victims’ families, and activists cut off roads in Beirut.
Known for his outspokenness, Noun had threatened Thursday to blow up the justice palace to protest moves to replace the judge probing the blast during televised remarks Thursday.
Lebanese ask police to release William Noun
Embattled judge justice Tarek Bitar has faced an endless series of complaints against himself, part of a campaign led by the Shiite group Hezbollah and its allies seeking to block his investigation into the blast.
On Friday, relatives of the blast’s victims threw stones at the justice palace in Beirut, breaking some windows, protesting William Noun’s arrest.
Protests resumed again on Saturday in front of the police station where William Noun was being held, according to witnesses.
“This is an attempt to intimidate, but it won’t work,” Noun’s lawyer, Ralph Tannous, told Lebanese television. “This is a political move, not a judicial one.”
MP and lawyer Melhem Khalaf told AFP, “I wish they would implement with the same enthusiasm all the warrants issued by the judicial investigator” over the port blast.
The 2020 disaster, one of history’s biggest non-nuclear explosions, killed more than 200 people and decimated vast areas of the capital after a haphazardly stored ammonium nitrate caught fire.
Bitar has attempted to question a former premier and four ex-ministers over the tragedy, but his probe was repeatedly obstructed before being suspended.
