Report: 5 Officers Ordered Detained as Othman Gives Permission

W460

Judge Ghada Aoun on Thursday ordered the interrogation and detention of five Internal Security Forces officers and a number of ISF members after ISF chief Maj. Gen. Imad Othman gave a permission for their prosecution, a media report said.

The five officers are accused of accepting bribes in return for protecting fugitives.

Progressive Socialist Party leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat had objected to the suspension of one of the officers – Colonel Wael Malaeb – lashing out at Othman, Prime Minister Saad Hariri and other political forces over the move.

Jumblat has stressed that he supports the enforcement of the law but urged Othman to “eradicate all corruption at his directorate” and to ensure a “transparent probe” in the case of Malaeb and his colleagues.

“And if he has the ability, he should rein in the major scandals at Beirut’s airport, where perhaps there are regional balances,” Jumblat added on Sunday.

Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil has defended the prosecution of the five officers, describing them as a “gang.”

“If every time a corrupt official is prosecuted the issue will be depicted as an attack on a sect and its leader, this means that accountability will not target any corrupt official,” Bassil has said.

“Corruption has no sect and there should be two sects: the sect of corrupts and the sect of upright people,” Bassil added.

“It is unacceptable to face political protections whenever we want to hold someone accountable,” the FPM chief went on to say, wondering if it is “required that we stay as we are until the collapse of the country.”

“The officers gang that you are hearing about comprises Druze, Shiites, Sunnis, Maronites, Greek Orthodoxs and all sects, so why don't they all enter prison? Why is the issue being depicted as being targeted against a certain party while it is comprised of everybody?” Bassil added.

Comments 1
Thumb Knight 08 February 2019, 05:27

Nothing more than a bad show to give the impression that hariri/aoun are fighting corruption. The same people/parties that robbed the country for the last 30 years are still in power and doing the same evil with impunity.