By: Euronews
Posted on 08/04/2023 – 11:21 Last updated 11:27
On Friday, Lebanon commemorates the third anniversary of the catastrophic Beirut port explosion, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in the world, at a time when the families of the victims find themselves facing a stalled justice due to the suspension of the investigation due to judicial interference and political bickering.
On August 4, 2020, at six o’clock and seven minutes, a huge explosion sounded in Beirut, killing more than 220 people and injuring more than 6,500 people, and causing widespread destruction in the port and a number of neighborhoods in the capital.
The Association of the Families of the Beirut Explosion Victims called on the Lebanese to participate in a march entitled “Justice against their will, for the sake of justice and accountability continue” and to wear black in mourning for the departed.
The march will start, at four in the afternoon, from in front of the Beirut Fire Brigade headquarters in Karantina, reaching the port at five thirty in the afternoon.
“This day is a memory, mourning and protest against the Lebanese state that politicizes our cause and interferes in the work of the judiciary,” Rima Al Zahed, who lost her brother Amin, an employee of a company inside the port, told AFP.
“It feels so horrible, because after three years of… The Beirut port bombing, there is not a single wanted person in prison, while the judiciary is shackled, justice is lost, and the truth is hidden.
From the first day, the authorities attributed the explosion to the storage of large quantities of ammonium nitrate inside the port, without precautionary measures, following the outbreak of a fire, the causes of which are not known until today. It was later found that officials at several levels were aware of the dangers of storing the substance and did not move a finger.
In the aftermath of the explosion, the authorities appointed Judge Fadi Sawan as a forensic investigator, but he was soon dismissed in February 2021 after he accused then-Prime Minister Hassan Diab and three former ministers of “negligence, negligence, and causing death” and wounding hundreds of people.
His successor, Judge Tariq Bitar, faced the same obstacles with announcing his intention to interrogate Diab, coinciding with launching the prosecution track against a number of former ministers, including deputies, and security and military officials.
The previous parliament refused to lift the immunity of the aforementioned deputies, and the Ministry of Interior refused to grant him permission to interrogate security leaders, and the security forces also refused to implement arrest warrants issued by him. After that, the investigation sank into the labyrinths of politics, and then into judicial chaos after dozens of lawsuits besieged Bitar to stop his hand, most of which were filed by defendant officials.
During two and a half years, Bitar was able to work officially for only about six months, during which he was exposed to pressures that foreshadowed an unprecedented crisis in the judicial body, especially after the Public Prosecutor of Cassation, Ghassan Oweidat, thwarted his attempt to resume investigations earlier this year.
Bitar had resumed his investigations on January 23, 2023, after 13 months of suspending them, and decided to prosecute eight new persons, including Oweidat, and set dates for the interrogation of 13 defendants.
However, Oweidat confronted him by accusing him of “rebellion against the judiciary and usurping power,” and issued a travel ban against him, and released all the detainees. What prompted Bitar to back down from proceeding with his decisions?
A legal source accompanying the file told AFP, without revealing his identity, that the investigation file is “under follow-up” by Bitar, despite the lawsuits that are pursuing him and officially suspending his work.
He explained that despite his absence from the corridors of the Palace of Justice, Bitar insists on completing his mission until the issuance of his indictment, as he promised the families of the victims who pin their hopes on him in order to achieve justice.
The demand of the families of the victims, who demonstrated repeatedly, for an international investigation, was met with an official rejection in Lebanon.
“We are tired and it bothers us that, after three years, we have not been able to do anything (to hold) these criminals to account,” al-Zahed said. “But at the same time, we believe that we will reach the truth, because the truth does not die.”
On Thursday, organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and families of victims renewed their call on member states of the United Nations Human Rights Council to support the establishment of an independent and impartial international fact-finding mission.
“There is a need for international action to break the culture of impunity in Lebanon,” Ramzi Qais, a Lebanese researcher at Human Rights Watch, stressed.
“The authorities used every avenue at their disposal to brazenly undermine and impede the local investigation to shield themselves from responsibility,” said Aya Majzoub, Deputy Regional Director at Amnesty International.
2023-08-04 09:23:51
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