The lead judge investigating last year's devastating Beirut port blast will be kept on the case after Lebanon's court of cassation rejected a legal complaint filed against him, local media reported on Monday.
The probe was in danger of stalling for the second time this year after the complaint by a former minister froze judge Tarek Bitar's activities.
His predecessor Fady Sawan was removed in February after a similar legal filing.
More than a year after the blast that devastated the city and killed more than 200 people, there are no answers to what caused highly explosive materials stored in the port for years to ignite on Aug. 4, 2020, or why they had been stored there.
An investigation by rights groups and local media revealed that most of Lebanon’s senior leadership and security agencies knew of the nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate and did little to protect residents of Beirut against it.
But over the past year, senior politicians have closed ranks in their efforts to block the probe.
The attempt to remove Bitar had angered families of the victims.
Bitar has reported to prosecutors threats he received by a senior Hezbollah official, through a third party, which said it was losing patience with the way he is carrying out the investigation.
