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08:12 GMT
BEIRUT, Aug 3 (KUNA) -- President Joseph Aoun on Monday affirmed the state's commitment to reveal the "whole truth" behind the 2020 Beirut Port explosion and pledged to prosecute culprits in the devastating explosion regardless of their positions.
The State of Lebanon remains committed to pursuing the investigations with transparency and integrity to unravel its circumstances and bring those responsible to justice "regardless of the hurdles and no matter how high their posts may be."
Justice recognizes no exceptions, the president stressed in a statement marking the fifth anniversary of the explosion that took more than 220 lives, injured thousands, inflicted wide scale damage and destruction in the city residential districts.
Serving justice in this case has been a high priority "since I had taken office," added Aoun, emphasizing, "Justice does not die and accountability is certainly coming."
Authorities at the time said the disaster was triggered by a fire in a warehouse where a t stockpile of industrial chemical ammonium nitrate had been haphazardly stored. Activists and relatives of the victims had been campaigning identify and punish those responsible for the catastrophic event, amid recurring questions about source of the stored materials and purpose of bringing them to the country.
Meanwhile, the UN Special Coordinator in Lebanon Jaenine Hennis-Plasschaert said in a statement, as she emerged from a meeting with victims' families, that justice must be fully served in the blast case immediately.
She praised the Lebanese Parliament's endorsement of the judiciary independence bill as a crucial step for "restoring the confidence between the Lebanese people and their institutions." (end)
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