One year after the deadly explosion in the port of Beirut, in Lebanon, despite the scale of this tragedy that traumatized the country, no one responsible has been brought to justice and the investigation is not progressing, as it has been hampered by politics. .
The August 4, 2020, firefighters were dispatched to the port to put out a fire. After 6:00 p.m., the explosion left 214 dead and more than 6,500 injured, devastating entire neighborhoods of the capital.
That same night, the authorities awarded the tragedy to 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, which were abandoned “without precautionary measures” for more than six months in the port.
A year later, public opinion is still waiting for the conclusions of the Lebanese investigation and denounces the political interference that could sabotage the case. The dark areas persist and the same questions remain unanswered.
Some fear that justice will never be served in this case. The investigating judge Tarek bitar seeks to incriminate several former ministers and senior officials, but the immunity that protects them as a result of their responsibilities slows down the progress of prosecutions.
“They are just trying to escape justice,” said lawyer Youssef Lahoud, who represents more than 1,000 victims of the blast.
Despite the obstacles, the investigation is “three-quarters complete,” according to a judicial source close to the file. Judge Bitar he hopes to announce his findings by the end of the year.
Boat full of ammonium nitrate
In November 2013, the ship Rhosus, flying a Moldovan flag that had left Georgia for Mozambique, made a stop in Beirut with a shipment of ammonium nitrate on board.
At that time, and as a result of a dark judicial process against its owner, the ship was immobilized. The shipment was unloaded in 2014 and stored in warehouse number 12, poorly maintained. Abandoned, the Rhosus it ended up sinking in 2018.
A private company of Mozambique, Mocambique Explosives Factory (FEM), explained in 2020 that it had indeed ordered ammonium nitrate from Georgia in 2013, but that the shipment was never delivered.
According to Lahoud, the investigation revealed the identity of several parties involved, including the name of the owner of the shipping company in charge of transporting the cargo and the name of the Mozambican bank that financed the operation.
“The courts determined the responsibilities regarding the party that transported the ammonium nitrate to Beirut, and the reasons why it was discharged, how it was stored, why it was not destroyed or sent abroad,” added Youssef Lahoud.
“But the investigation has not yet determined whether other parties were behind the trip of the Rhosus“Lahoud continued, referring to foreign countries or groups.
The local investigation also included press reports establishing the alleged links between three businessmen with Syrian and Russian nationalities with the company Savaro Limited, specialized in the trade of chemical products and which had been commissioned by the Mozambican firm.
Savaro Limited It has an address in London, but the identity of its true owners is not known.
The reason for the explosion has not yet been determined
The “weak point” of the investigation, according to Lahoud, is the fact that the reason for the explosion has not yet been determined.
“Was it the fire? If that were the case, how did it start? “Asks the lawyer, for whom nothing allows to rule out the hypothesis of an alleged sabotage or attack.
Immediately after the drama, security sources referred to welding work that could have caused the fire. But some observers are not convinced.
Judge Bitar wants to carry out a reconstruction of the events at the scene of the explosion to determine the reasons for the fire. He also requested the cooperation of several countries on the issue of the origin of the shipment, and contacted, for example, France, United States and Italy to get satellite images of the port, hoping to see what happened there on August 4, 2020.
France He assured that he did not have satellites over Lebanon on the day of the explosion, according to judicial sources.
“The absence of images of this type also makes it impossible to know if some amounts of ammonium nitrate were withdrawn discreetly from the deposit in recent years,” he said. Lahoud.
Because, according to experts after seeing the size of the explosion, the amount of ammonium nitrate in the port should have been a few hundred tons, and not 2,750 as initially announced.
Authorities were aware of the presence of ammonium nitrate
The authorities of Lebanon have always categorically rejected any international investigation and, therefore, France launched its own court case as several of its citizens are among the victims.
In mid-June, about fifty ornon-governmental organizations (NGOs), They called for a UN investigation, citing “flagrant political interference, the immunity of senior political leaders” and “violations of regular procedure.”
For a large part of public opinion, it is the entire republic that must be held accountable. On July 20, 2020, just days before the tragedy, the president Michel Aoun and Diab they had received a warning from the intelligence services.
In an internal report, and prepared several months before the explosion, the Lebanese National Security Agency noted that the deposit contained “dangerous materials“and warned about the risk that a”huge fire that could almost completely destroy the harbor“.
Today, Hassan diab is accused and 18 people are detained as part of the case, including the director of customs, Badri daher, and the port manager, Hassan Koraytem.
Judge Bitar called on parliament to lift the immunity of three deputies who held ministerial positions, Ali Hasan Khalil (Finance), Ghazi Zaayter (Public Works and Transport) and Nouhad Al-Machnouk (Interior), to prosecute them. He also wants to blame intelligence officials.
“It has been proven, through documents and witnesses, that they were aware of the presence of ammonium nitrate and its dangers,” reported a judicial source.
ACE
.
source https://pledgetimes.com/lebanon-in-beirut-investigation-does-not-progress-one-year-after-the-explosion/
Disqus comments