The Judicial Council is approaching the pleading stage in the “Ruwais and Bir al-Abd bombings” file after 13 years
The Judicial Council has completed the interrogation of 13 detainees in the case of the “Al-Ruwais and Bir al-Abd” bombings, paving the way for moving to the pleadings stage in preparation for the issuance of rulings, 13 years after the two bombings occurred, which were carried out with two car bombs. The first took place on August 15, 2013, resulting in 27 deaths, and the second took place on July 9 of the same year, without any casualties.
In a session held under the chairmanship of Judge Suhail Abboud, the Council completed the interrogation of five defendants, after it had interrogated eight detainees in a previous session, provided that the course of interrogations will be completed with the appearance of a single detainee before the Council in the next session scheduled for October 23.
During yesterday’s session, the detainees continued their categorical denial of any connection to the two bombings, like those before them, with the exception of the detainee Naeem Abbas, who admitted that he himself had booby-trapped the car that exploded in Bir al-Abd and led it to the site of its occurrence, denying in return any connection to the Ruwais bombing.
During the judicial confrontation, the Council confronted the defendants with their initial confessions related to booby-trapping the Ruwais car, communicating with fleeing defendants to secure explosive materials, and belonging to terrorist cells and organizations. However, the defendants unanimously denied these facts, attributing them to their exposure to pressure and torture during the initial investigation phase. In this context, one of the defendants claimed that the judicial investigator threatened to return him to the Ministry of Defense, while Muhammad Ibrahim Al-Hujairi stated: “I was not with ISIS or Al-Nusra, and I do not like them.”
The detainees intersected at another point, which was their previous prosecution before the military court for terrorist crimes, where some of them were sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor, including Muhammad Ibrahim Al-Hujairi, nicknamed “Kahroub” after his work in car electrical repair. Although the lawsuit papers included statements stating that he participated in booby-trapping at least four cars inside his shop, Al-Hujairi denied this before the council, explaining that the nickname “Kahroub” was given to him when he was young due to his loud voice and quick anger, adding that he used to repair cars for armed groups by saying, “Whoever comes, you are welcome,” but he added, stressing: “I did not repair any car bombs.”
For his part, the detainee, Malik Al-Sultan, reported that he was arrested by Hezbollah shortly after the Ruwais bombing while he was with a group of people in a café on the airport road, and he was released after about 7 or 8 hours. He explained that his relationship with one of the fugitive defendants was limited to “arming” Syrians and selling individual weapons in the Labweh area.
As for the accused, Ahmed Amoun, who was convicted of killing the first person in the Internal Security Forces, Zaher Ezz El-Din, he tried to convince the council that he was not the wanted person himself, retracting his initial confessions that he had previously made regarding transporting car bombs from Syria to Lebanon on behalf of Omar and Sami Al-Atrash. He attributed the reason for his name being included in cases of belonging to terrorist groups to his participation in the kidnapping of a person from Arsal, “so they considered me an ISIS,” claiming that he learned about the Ruwais bombing for the first time from the judicial investigator during his arrest in 2016.
In turn, the Syrian defendant, Ibrahim Al-Hussein, was quick to deny his initial confessions that talked about purchasing explosive materials for the fugitive defendant, Muhammad Al-Ahmad, in exchange for money, stressing by saying: “I smuggle medicines between Lebanon and Syria, and I do not trade weapons and explosives.”
In the same context, the defendant, Tamam Al-Hujairi, contradicted his initial confessions regarding his witnessing of “Kahroub,” “Abu Abdullah Al-Iraqi,” and the accused, Ahmed Abdullah Al-Atrash (known as “Arsal Eagle”) as they were setting up car bombs, considering that “all this talk is a lie.” He also denied working in the arms trade for terrorist organizations, limiting his activities to “acts of robbery with Malik al-Sultan,” as he put it.
