Ghassan Oueidat

Lead investigating judge Tarek Bitar's inquiry into the August 4, 2020 Beirut port explosion, which killed more than 200 people, repeatedly stalled after politically connected suspects filed lawsuits against Bitar personally. Under Lebanese procedure, those lawsuits automatically suspend a judge's work.

In January 2023, when Bitar tried to revive the investigation and re-charge several senior officials, Oueidat responded as Attorney General by filing a legal complaint against Bitar himself, which halted the probe again. Oueidat also ordered the release of suspects who had been in pre-trial detention since 2020 and instructed the security forces and the Public Prosecution Office to stop cooperating with Bitar's investigation.

Bitar then formally charged Oueidat, former finance minister Ali Hassan Khalil, and former public works minister Ghazi Zeaiter in connection with obstructing the investigation.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have cited Oueidat's use of prosecutorial authority to shield senior political figures from questioning as judicial obstruction. Their reports argue that he used institutional power to block accountability.

The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP) devoted a dedicated legal analysis to the Oueidat-Bitar standoff, describing it as an obstruction-of-justice case in its own right, separate from the underlying blast investigation.