Heavy gunfire rang out amid clashes in the Lebanese capital during a protest for Hezbollah and its supporters who had gathered to demonstrate against the top judge investigating last year’s tragic Beirut port blast.
On Thursday, scenes of unrest uploaded to Twitter showed people running frantically throughout Beirut around the Justice Palace area, with sirens blaring in the background and what sounded like several rounds of gun shots.
A sniper opens fire at a Hezbollah-Amal protest to demand the removal of Bitar, the judge in charge of investigating the Beirut port explosion. There are dead and wounded. A very dangerous escalation pic.twitter.com/lZdWIlXHep
— Liz Sly (@LizSly) October 14, 2021
One graphic video on the social media platform captured heavy gunfire and screaming and a seriously injured man being dragged through the streets bleeding.
Media reports claim that at least one person has been killed and several injured. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called for the arrest of the perpetrators of the violence in the capital.
The protests come shortly after the Lebanese court dismissed a case put forward by two politicians, the ex finance minister Ali Hassan Khalil and former public works minister Ghazi Zeiter, who were due to stand in the docks in the Beirut blast probe earlier this week.
Tarek Bitar, the lead investigator, had his probe suspended for the second time in under three weeks on Tuesday after Khalil, a senior member of the Shiite Amal movement and an ally of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, and Zeiter, also close to the movement complained.
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source https://www.rt.com/news/537437-gunfire-beirut-blast-judge-unrest/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
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