Judiciary questions three residents of Jbeil after failing to find “mass grave”

 

 

The judiciary on Tuesday interrogated three suspects on charges of spreading misleading information regarding an alleged mass grave in the Jbeil town of Halat and released them pending completion of the investigation.

 

Mount Lebanon Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat also ordered the interrogation of journalist Manal Shaaya in connection with reporting on the alleged mass grave, but she failed to report to his office pending interference by the Journalists Union.

 

Shaaya reported, in an article published in An-Nahar Youth supplement on Thursday, that residents of the Halat region reported that a mass grave dating from the 1975-1990 Civil War was located in the town.

 

The three were identified as Jacqueline Elias al-Rai, Milad al-Rai and Joseph Abi Sharr.

 

They were interrogated for four hours and released pending completion of the investigation, a judicial source said.

 

The sources added that the three admitted they supplied Shaaya with information concerning the mass grave.

The interrogation was launched after a police force completed excavations at the site in search of the alleged mass grave, but found nothing. 
 

The state-run National News Agency said the search for the alleged mass grave ended by 3 p.m. after digging through 80 meters of the highway in the northern Halat region “without finding a trace to the [alleged] mass grave.”

 

Jbeil MPs Shamel Mouzaya and Abbas Hashem, members of MP Michel Aoun”s Change and Reform Bloc, expressed reservations regarding the whole search operation.

 

Mouzaya said the operation was carried out “without proper measures.”

 

He called for expanding the search by 3 meters toward the east and west from the center of the highway.

He described the search effort as “play acting.”

 

Hashem also said the operation should have sought the help of “experts in criminology.”

 

On Monday, Aoun said it was “essential” that the fate of missing people throughout Lebanon be determined. “We must open all mass graves for everyone to see their reality.”