Judge Al-Hajj Orders Prosecution of Those Who Insulted Patriarch Al-Rai

The Public Prosecutor of the Court of Cassation, Judge Ahmad Rami Al-Hajj, concluded the preliminary investigations, which were conducted under his supervision, into the complaint related to the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation LBCI publishing a caricature video from the Angry Birds series, and the reports filed against the chanter Ali Barakat and the activist Alaa Abu Jabal and others, on the background of publishing and promoting an insulting image of the Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Bechara Boutros Al-Rai.

Judge Al-Hajj decided to archive the report and not to take any legal action against LBC channel and the invitees Peter Joe Pierre Al-Daher and Hassan Al-Khatib, due to the lack of elements of any crime against them, while he requested from the Public Prosecution of Appeal in Beirut to prosecute Barakat, Abu Jabal, and anyone revealed by the investigation, for the crime of "publishing caricature drawings and insultingly targeting His Beatitude Patriarch Al-Rai, his person and his position, and demeaning him and his religious symbolism, stirring up sectarian strife, and disturbing the peace of coexistence among the Lebanese components."