Bsharri district MPs Sethrida Tawk Geagea and Melhem Tawk issued a joint statement regarding the ongoing investigation in the Qornet al-Sawda case.
“Since this heinous crime was committed on our land, in the ‘summit of martyrs’ [in reference to Qornet al-Sawda], and in the aftermath of the loss of Haitham and Malek Tawk, we have done everything we can to calm the anger of our people and prevent any impulsive response, giving security and judicial institutions space to carry out their duties,” the statement read.
“However, we were surprised by the request of the Municipality of Bekaasafrine, which was communicated through its legal representative. They are asking for the border demarcation dossier to be transferred from the real estate judge who has been handling it for three years, citing “legitimate suspicion!” This move is reminiscent of the methods used to sabotage investigations and obscure the truth about victims of many crimes that have shaken Lebanon.”
According to the joint statement, the “legitimate suspicion” claim is baseless and unjustified because the judge and her technical team of four experts have been working on this dossier and studying maps and documents for more than three years. It is a striking example of the suspicious behavior of those who not only incited the heinous crime but attempted to interfere with the course of the investigation in hopes of misleading it.
MPs Geagea and Tawk have therefore emphasized that the judicial interventions and pressures that some judges are subjected to—such as the request to transfer the case and the judge’s abstention from issuing a ruling on the case after having nearly studied the whole dossier—are two crimes that attempt to impose a rhetoric of strife and division between residents of Bsharri and Bekaasafrine. And the dangerous implications of this suspicious behavior reflect the moral bankruptcy of the perpetrators and the absence of any alleged rights on this land.
The Bsharri MPs have thus expressed that they consider anyone exerting any form of presssure on the judiciary, and anyone inciting hateful rhetoric, to be fully responsible for any drop of blood that may be shed.
Geagea and Tawk also reiterated their stance that the only fair and just solution to stop the repeated attacks on this land would be to put an end to the pressure being exerted on the course of the investigation, and to stop the exaggerated intimidation tactics aimed at the judge so that she may issue her ruling as soon as possible.
Two men from Bsharri, Haytham Tawk and Malek Tawk, were killed on Saturday July 1 by militiamen in the high mountains of Qornet el-Sawda, an area bordering the districts of Bsharri and Denniye.
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