Lebanon's military court on Friday charged 13 people over a shipment of explosives bound for Hezbollah that security forces seized earlier this month, AFP reported, citing a judicial official.
Source: AFP via Hatha Alyoum English
The 13 were charged with "violating government decisions, possession of arms and explosives, and criminal conspiracy to undermine the authority of the state", the judicial official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
UPI reported that Judge Claude Ghanem charged eight people linked to Hezbollah with smuggling hundreds of kilograms of explosive materials, including the highly explosive substance C-4, seized by security forces earlier this month.
Source: UPI via EIN Presswire Lebanon Newswire
Judicial reporting on the indictment says the list of 13 defendants includes eight people identified by full name as organisationally affiliated with Hezbollah and five others identified by surname only. Two defendants are in pretrial detention, while the rest are being prosecuted in absentia and arrest warrants have been issued for those who fled.
A case that has moved step by step
The charges are the latest development in a case Awaaz Punjab has followed since the shipment was seized on October 5 on the Damascus–Beirut highway, carrying more than 500 kilograms of TNT and C-4. Earlier this month the Lebanese cabinet postponed a decision on referring the case to the Judicial Council after a walkout at Baabda Palace; the military court has now pressed charges itself.
Hezbollah has previously acknowledged, in reporting on the case, that the truck belonged to the organisation, while claiming the explosives were intended for use against Israeli forces. The group has not publicly responded to Friday's charges in the reports cited here.
Why the case matters beyond the courtroom
The prosecution lands in the middle of Lebanon's most sensitive political argument: the government's decision that weapons must be held only by the state, and the pressure on Hezbollah to disarm. A court case that names Hezbollah members in an explosives shipment headed towards Beirut is therefore not just a criminal file — it is a direct test of whether state institutions will act on that decision.
What happens next is the court process itself: the detained defendants face questioning under military judicial supervision, and security forces say they are working with the Public Prosecutor's Office to execute the warrants against the fugitives.