Three years since catastrophic Beirut blast, Lebanon lives on with no justice delivered

It was reported that the blast took place after a warehouse caught fire just after 6 pm (1600 GMT) on August 4, 2020, which led to the detonation of hundreds of tonnes of ammonium nitrate. The chemicals, which were aboard a Russian-leased ship and originally bound for Mozambique, were present at the port since 2013 when they were unloaded in an unscheduled stop.

The shipment was claimed by no one and led to a legal dispute over unpaid fees and defects. The amount of chemicals which blew up was one-fifth of the 2,754 tonnes that were unloaded in 2013, concluded the FBI. The blast led to a mushroom cloud over Beirut, and people in Cyprus, which was 250 km (155 miles) away, also felt it.
 

A lot of Lebanese officials, which included then-President Michel Aoun and then-Prime Minister Hassan Diab, were aware of the cargo. Aoun said that after the blast he informed the security chiefs to "do what is necessary" after learning about the chemicals. Diab added that his conscience is clear. In a 2021 report, Human Rights Watch said that government officials and high-level security "foresaw the significant threat to life ... and tacitly accepted the risk of deaths occurring".

The country’s justice minister appointed Judge Fadi Sawan to investigate the blast and charged Diab and three ex-ministers with negligence in December 2020. However, in February 2021, a court removed him from the case after two ex-ministers, Ghazi Zeitar and Ali Hassan Khalil, complained he had overstepped his powers.

Tarek Bitar, the successor of Sawan, tried to interrogate senior figures which included Khalil and Zeitar. Bitar's removal was demanded by the suspects over alleged bias and mistakes which led to many suspensions of the investigation. 

The judges meant to rule on those complaints retired in 2022 and no successors were appointed, leaving the probe in limbo. Bitar was later charged by Lebanon's top public prosecutor for allegedly exceeding his powers, who further ordered the release of people detained since the blast, which included Beirut port authority’s former head, which placed the probe on hold again. 

Iran-backed Hezbollah refuted public accusations that it has control of the port or stored arms and it campaigned against Bitar while trying to question its allies. Hezbollah official in 2021 warned Bitar that the group would "uproot" him, and in an anti-Bitar protest, supporters marched which prompted deadly violence in Beirut.