Zahran Says Kishli is 'Zuheir al-Siddiq 2' after Nitrates Remarks
Pro-Hizbullah journalist Salem Zahran on Thursday described a man who claimed to have transported ammonium nitrate shipments from Beirut port to south Lebanon as “Zuheir al-Siddiq 2,” in reference to a Syrian national described as a “false witness” during the international investigations into Rafik Hariri’s murder.
“At the request of the public prosecution, the central investigations department has retrieved the transcript of what Imad Kishli said about his transportation of ammonium nitrate to the South, sending it to the investigative judge into the Beirut port crime Tarek al-Bitar for the legal measures to be taken,” Zahran said in a tweet.
In an earlier tweet, Zahran had called for the interrogation of Kishli by the judiciary, describing him as “Zuheir al-Siddiq 2”.
“Along with his testimony, he and the fabricators behind him must be encompassed by the judicial investigation into the Beirut port explosion,” Zahran added.
Kishli, a truck driver who says that he had worked for decades at the port before being wounded in the 2020 explosion, appeared Wednesday night in an interview on MTV.
Asked whether he had witnessed a “suspicious movement” at the port, Kishli said: “Several times, not only once, the last of which was on August 4 (2020), and the movements started at 5am.”
“The port was full of security agencies… ‘You can’t stop here, move forward, move backwards,’ (they were saying),” Kishli said, referring to the hours that preceded the blast.
Asked whether he had ever transported material whose nature was not known to him, the man said: “Yes… it’s a long story.”
He added that the last such trip that he made was around four years ago and that it was to south Lebanon.
Pressed to say whether it was an ammonium nitrate consignment, Kishli said “God knows,” adding that he made two trips to the South and that the material was in a metallic container which he did not open.
“I did not know that it might explode or be used for manufacturing,” Kishli went on to say.
Beirut Bar Association chief Melhem Khalaf was present at the interview and the talk show’s host, Marcel Ghanem, said that Khalaf would help Kishli join a witness protection program.
Source: Naharnet
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