Today, Tuesday, the Discriminatory Public Prosecutor in Lebanon, Ghassan Oweidat, allowed the release of a ship loaded with grain and flying the Syrian flag, days after it was detained by the Lebanese security services, following Ukraine's allegations that it was carrying flour and barley stolen from Ukrainian lands controlled by Russia.
A high-ranking judicial source told Reuters that the Lebanese public prosecutor had allowed the ship to leave after investigations concluded that there were no criminal offenses.
The source added that the ship "La Odessa" is still unable to leave due to a second detention order issued by a judge in the northern city of Tripoli (where the ship docked) on Monday.
An official at the Ukrainian embassy in Beirut said his country could not immediately comment on the matter.
Ukraine said the ship was carrying about 10,000 tons of flour and barley, a shipment Kyiv says Russia stole from Ukrainian warehouses following its invasion of the country in February.
The Russian embassy in Lebanon said it had no information about the shipment.
Moscow has previously denied stealing any Ukrainian grain.
Earlier, an official from the company that owns the shipment denied that it was stolen, and said that the ship would sail to Syria if it was allowed to leave the port of Tripoli.
Kyiv accuses Russia of stealing its crops in the areas it controlled, to use them for local consumption or to resell them abroad.
This comes at a time when Lebanon, mired in economic collapse, is witnessing a grain crisis, as the Lebanese wait in queues to get bags of subsidized bread, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine worsened the situation, as Lebanon imports 80% of its needs from Ukraine.
Lebanon used to import about 60% of its wheat imports from Ukraine, but shipments were disrupted by the Russian invasion and the blockade of the main Black Sea ports used by Ukraine for export.