BEIRUT - Lebanon's Prosecutor General Ghassan Oweidat has pressed charges against 25 people, including senior port and customs officials and security officers, over the massive Beirut port blast that killed 172 people, a judicial source told Reuters on Friday.

It was not immediately clear what the exact charges were. Legal sources said the suspects would now be referred to a criminal court to be tried.

The judicial source said 19 of them were detained following the Aug. 4 explosion at a warehouse that Lebanese authorities said housed highly-explosive material for years which detonated.

(Reporting by Laila Bassam and Samia Nakhoul; Editing by William Maclean) ((ghaida.ghantous@thomsonreuters.com;))