Beirut port blast investigator Judge Tarek Bitar on Friday postponed ex-minister Ghazi Zoaiter’s interrogation session to November 9, after his lawyer appeared before the judge and filed preliminary defenses, the National News Agency.

The lawyer argued that it is not up to the Judicial Council to prosecute Zoaiter “seeing as the jurisdiction belongs to the Higher Council for the Trial of Presidents and Ministers.”

The majority of the political blocs “secretly prefer postponing the parliamentary elections,” sources said, but have no “courage” to say it.

Political circles told al-Joumhouria newspaper, in remarks published Friday, that “there is fear for the fate of the parliamentary elections,” since every party is “shifting the blame on the other,” in order to delay the polls.

The U.S. Treasury on Thursday slapped sanctions on prominent Lebanese tycoons Jihad al-Arab and Dany Khoury and lawmaker Jamil al-Sayyed for allegedly benefitting from corruption and adding to the breakdown of the rule of law in the country.

State Commissioner to the Military Court, Judge Fadi Akiki, referred Thursday the Tayyouneh file to the first military investigative judge Fadi Sawwan, media reports said.

Akiki asked Sawwan to hear Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea as a witness.

Speaker Nabih Berri’s political aide MP Ali Hassan Khalil on Thursday lashed out at Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil without naming him.

An argument occurred between Amal’s MP Ali Hassan Khalil and Free Patriotic Movement’s MP Cesar Abi Khalil during a parliamentary session Thursday.

Khalil accused President Michel Aoun of violating the constitution for failing to call for parliamentary by-elections to fill the empty parliamentary seats.

The MPs of the Free Patriotic Movement on Thursday staged a walkout from a legislative session over a dispute related to the current threshold needed to approve laws and bills -- 59 or 65 votes.

Lead investigator in the Beirut port blast Judge Tarek Bitar suspended Thursday a scheduled session for hearing ex-Prime Minister Hassan Diab's testimony after the latter filed a lawsuit that will pause his prosecution until a decision is made.

On Wednesday, one day before his scheduled session, Diab filed a lawsuit against the state.

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea has overseen a donation of medications to the Hôpital Psychiatrique de la Croix. 

Abbas Ahmed Mazloum, 38, on Wednesday died of wounds sustained in the Beirut port blast, 15 months after the catastrophic explosion.

The National News Agency said Mazloum, a father of five, was at his job at the port at the moment of the blast.