In Lebanon, the investigation into the August 4 explosion that devastated several districts of Beirut is shifting into high gear. Four months after this cataclysm which left 200 dead and 6,000 injured, the judge in charge of the procedure, Fadi Sawan, indicted four political leaders: the current Prime Minister Hassan Diab, who had resigned after the tragedy but continues to expedite business pending the formation of a new government; the former finance minister Ali Hassan Khalil, right-hand man of the Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, leader of the Shiite Amal party; and two former holders of the portfolio of public works and transport, Ghazi Zeaiter, also a member of Amal, and Youssef Fenianos, affiliated with the Christian Marada party, which sits in Parliament in the group of Amal and Hezbollah, the movement pro-Iranian Shiite.
Until then, only about 20 officials had been indicted by Judge Sawan, angering the families of the victims, who attribute the disaster to the carelessness and corruption of the ruling class. The explosion, felt as far as Cyprus, was caused by the accidental ignition of a stock of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, stored for six years, without the slightest precaution, in the port of Beirut. The blast, of a power rarely reached for a non-nuclear explosion, damaged tens of thousands of homes in central Beirut.
Judge Fadi Sawan’s decision was taken after the investigation “Confirmed that the defendants had received several written reports warning them against any procrastination to get rid of ammonium nitrate”, a judicial source told AFP. In the days following the earthquake, local and foreign media revealed that the Lebanese security services had repeatedly warned of the danger represented by this stockpile of chemical product, without the political leaders concerned reacting.
Defect of form
“Judge Sawan’s decision goes in the direction we hoped, welcomes Melhem Khalaf, the president of the Bar Association, elected in the wake of the protest movement of autumn 2019. Justice is getting its act together, that’s how we build a country ”. “All this could remain a simple way of calming public opinion if it is not accompanied by a serious investigation into the responsibilities of the ministers involved and those of other ministers who have not yet been summoned to appear”, warns the NGO Legal Agenda on its Twitter account.
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