BEIRUT —
Lebanon’s top prosecutor Tuesday cleared a Syrian-flagged ship for release
after it was seized over allegations by Kyiv’s embassy in Beirut that it
carried flour and barley stolen from Ukraine, an official said.
اضافة اعلان
Prosecutor
Ghassan Oueidat allowed the Laodicea, which docked in the northern port city of Tripoli
last week, to set sail after investigations failed to prove it carried stolen
goods, a judicial official told AFP.
“Preliminary
investigations ... did not reveal the existence of a criminal offence, or that
the goods were stolen,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
Ukraine’s embassy
in Lebanon had claimed that the grain aboard the ship was loaded from a region
occupied by Russian forces and said it presented Lebanese authorities with
proof that the merchandise was stolen.
Ukraine has
repeatedly accused Moscow’s forces of ransacking its grain warehouses since
Russia invaded the country in late February.
On Saturday,
Oueidat ordered the vessel’s seizure and instructed police to investigate.
The prosecutor
found that the grain aboard the vessel belonged to a Syrian merchant, the
judicial official said.
“The Syrian
national whose name is on the shipment from Ukraine came in for investigation
and presented the papers and documents that prove his ownership,” the official
said on Tuesday.
Ukraine, one of
the world’s largest grain exporters, has this week tentatively resumed grain
exports following a UN-backed deal.
A Sierra
Leone-registered ship, Razoni, set sail from Odessa port for Lebanon Monday
under an accord brokered by Turkey and the United Nations that seeks to release
millions of tonnes of trapped Ukrainian produce to world markets and curb a
global food crisis.
Lebanon, which is
struggling with one of the world’s worst financial crises, is facing a
particularly acute bread shortage.
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