3 Years Since Beirut Blast, No One Held Accountable As Probe Suspended

Beirut:

Lebanon on Friday marks three years since one in every of historical past’s greatest non-nuclear explosions rocked Beirut. But no one has been held to account as political and authorized pressures droop the investigation.

On August 4, 2020, the huge blast at Beirut’s port destroyed swathes of the Lebanese capital, killing greater than 220 folks and injuring at the least 6,500.

Authorities stated the catastrophe was triggered by a fireplace in a warehouse the place an unlimited stockpile of commercial chemical ammonium nitrate had been haphazardly saved for years.

Three years on, the probe is nearly at a standstill, leaving survivors nonetheless craving for solutions.

The primary activist group representing households of these killed has known as for a protest march on Friday afternoon, converging on the port.

“This can be a day of commemoration, mourning and protest towards the Lebanese state that politicises our trigger and interferes within the judiciary,” stated Rima al-Zahed, whose brother was killed within the explosion.

“The judiciary is shackled, justice is out of attain, and the reality is shrouded,” she advised AFP.

The blast struck amid an financial collapse that the World Financial institution has dubbed one of many worst in current historical past and which is extensively blamed on a governing elite accused of corruption and mismanagement.

Since its early days, the probe into the explosion has confronted a slew of political and authorized challenges.

In December 2020, lead investigator Fadi Sawan charged former prime minister Hassan Diab and three ex-ministers with negligence.

However as political stress mounted, Sawan was faraway from the case.

– ‘Tradition of impunity’ –

His successor, Tarek Bitar, unsuccessfully requested lawmakers to carry parliamentary immunity for MPs who have been previously ministers.

The highly effective Iran-backed Hezbollah group has launched a marketing campaign towards Bitar, accusing him of bias and demanding his dismissal.

The inside ministry has refused to execute arrest warrants which the lead investigator has issued.

In December 2021, Bitar suspended his probe after a barrage of lawsuits, primarily from politicians he had summoned on expenses of negligence.

However in a shock transfer this January, Bitar resumed investigations after a 13-month hiatus, charging eight new suspects together with high-level safety officers and Lebanon’s prime prosecutor, Ghassan Oueidat.

Oueidat then charged Bitar with insubordination and “usurping energy”, and ordered the discharge of all these detained over the blast.

Bitar has refused to step apart, but has not set foot inside Beirut’s justice palace for months.

“Work (on the investigation) is ongoing,” stated a authorized knowledgeable with data of the case, requesting anonymity as a result of sensitivity of the matter.

Bitar is set to maintain his promise to ship justice for victims’ households, the knowledgeable added.

Zahed, whose brother died within the blast, stated: “The reality doesn’t die as long as there’s somebody to demand it.

“We imagine that we’ll get the reality.”

On Thursday, 300 people and organisations together with Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty Worldwide renewed a name for the United Nations to determine a fact-finding mission, a requirement native officers have repeatedly rejected.

“Worldwide motion is required to interrupt the tradition of impunity in Lebanon,” HRW’s Ramzi Kaiss stated in a press release.

Amnesty’s Aya Majzoub accused authorities of utilizing “each device at their disposal to shamelessly undermine and hinder the home investigation to defend themselves from accountability”.

(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)