Beirut demands justice –

BEIRUT (AP) — Four years ago, Helen Ata received a call from a stranger, telling her that a huge explosion at Beirut’s port had caused her building to collapse. Her siblings were trapped under the rubble.

One of them, Issam, survived but was left with a permanent disability in his right leg. Her twin brother, Abdo, whom she called her “other half,” died.

“We will never feel safe again,” she told The Associated Press, sitting next to a portrait of Abdo.

The anniversary of the port blast, which was marked Sunday, comes as the region braces for retaliation after an Israeli strike killed a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut and the Tehran blast, blamed by many on Israel, killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. For many, fears of a new escalation come as the wounds of the blast four years ago remain raw.

On Aug. 4, 2020, hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate detonated at a warehouse in the port of Beirut. The massive explosion rocked the Lebanese capital, killing at least 218 people, according to an AP count, injuring 6,000 more, and devastating large parts of Beirut, causing billions of dollars in damage.

The explosion stunned the nation, and a disgruntled investigating judge’s inquiry into the incident shook the ruling elite in a country rife with corruption and mismanagement. But years of stonewalling by high-level officials to avoid accountability and stall the inquiry have hampered hopes for justice.

“Four years later, there is not a single arrest,” Ata said. “There is a crime and there are defendants, but there are no criminals.”

Judge Tarek Bitar is the second to lead the inquiry into the port blast. He has indicted more than a dozen senior political, security and port officials. Most of the victims’ families calling for justice have backed him, but since the investigation began, senior officials have repeatedly refused to appear to answer questions.

Karim Nammour, a lawyer for the Lebanese watchdog group Legal Agenda, said the case had shaken officials because it exposed the dangers of the “criminal incompetence” with which they had run the country for decades.

Political leaders in Lebanon have accused Bitar, without providing evidence, of bias in his investigation, and some have even demanded his dismissal, while filing legal complaints against him, causing the investigation to stall.

In a recent speech, Australia’s ambassador to Lebanon, Andrew Barnes, said his country “has a particular and strong interest in seeing a full and transparent investigation into the blast,” referring to 2-year-old Isaac Oehlers, who died in the explosion.

“We will not accept the many excuses for the impossibility of continuing the investigation.”

Four judicial officials told the AP that Lebanon’s top prosecutor, Jamal Hajjar, and chief judge Suhail Abboud, met with Bitar several times this year to try to find a way to reach an agreement, in accordance with Lebanese law, to get senior officials to cooperate to end the impasse.

According to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, Hajjar suggested that the case be handled by separate courts and judges, limiting Bitar to investigating mid- and low-level port employees. Bitar rejected the idea outright, calling it a concession to the country’s ruling elite, and insisted on continuing his inquiry, saying he was determined to issue an indictment by the end of the year, despite the obstacles.

Obstacles

Bitar’s investigation has been hampered in many ways.

In 2023, then-chief prosecutor Ghassan Oweidat ordered the release of 17 detainees — including port and customs officials — who had been arrested pre-trial shortly after the blast, pending the outcome of the investigation. Bitar and other critics called the decision illegal.

This year, two accused former ministers whom Bitar relentlessly pursued and issued arrest warrants against, Youssef Fenianos and current lawmaker Ali Hassan Khalil, had their arrest warrants suspended while the case remained stalled, a move that rights group Amnesty International called “another nail in the coffin of justice.”

“This is also why the established order and its institutions fear justice and try to prevent Bitar from handling the case,” said Nammour of Legal Agenda. “Because he is persecuting officials in a way that is unprecedented in the country’s history.”