The Secretary-General of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, on Monday criticized the main investigator in the Beirut port explosion, Judge Tariq Bitar, accusing him of being "biased and politicized."

Nasrallah asked Judge Bitar a question in a televised speech, saying, "Have you, as a judge, listened to current President Michel Aoun or former President Michel Suleiman?"

And the Secretary-General of Hezbollah continued, directing his speech to the judge that since the ship entered Lebanon, a number of prime ministers have been appointed as prime minister, but you went to the former prime minister, Hassan Diab, "because you weakened him."

He added that when you go immediately to a specific minister and to a specific president, this is clearly politicized targeting, and clear bias.

"We are among those who have been morally and politically injured, so we want truth and accountability, but the judge's work is a political act that has nothing to do with justice and truth," he said.

He directed his words to the families of the victims, "If you expect that you will reach the truth with this judge, you will not reach justice," because this judge "employed the blood of the martyrs and the wounded in the service of political goals."

The investigation into the August 4, 2020 explosion has made little progress, amid a smear campaign by the principal investigator, Tariq Bitar.

Reuters reported last week that a senior Hezbollah official threatened Bitar last month that the group would remove him from the investigation.

Bitar's efforts to interrogate former and current state officials, including the prime minister at the time of the explosion, and former ministers and senior officials in the security sector, were repeatedly rejected on suspicion of negligence.

Three former ministers filed two complaints against Bitar after he sought to accuse them of negligence, which led to the explosion. The three denied committing any wrongdoing, and questioned the impartiality of the judge, but he did not comment on the accusations.

Bitar is the second judge whose investigations have been aborted by powerful factions in Lebanon. A Lebanese court previously dismissed his predecessor, Fadi Sawan, in February after a complaint filed against him by a former official who had accused him of neglect.

Iranian fuel and sanctions

On the other hand, Nasrallah repeated his call to the government to request an "exception" from the US sanctions in order to be able to import Iranian fuel and alleviate the severe shortage of fuel.

Nasrallah said the government should make solving the "electricity problem an absolute priority" for it, adding that the total power cut on Saturday when Lebanon's two largest power plants stopped working was a "brain death" for the country as a whole.

Iran sends fuel shipments to the port of Banias in Syria, where it is then transported in trucks to Lebanon, in an operation organized by Hezbollah, but Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati considered the Iranian shipments a violation of the country's sovereignty.

On a visit to Beirut last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian expressed his country's readiness to build two power stations in Lebanon, one in Beirut and the other in the south, within 18 months.