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Acting Prime Minister Hassan Diab said on Tuesday that the US FBI report calculated the amount of ammonium nitrate that exploded inside the Beirut port on August 4 at 500 tons.
Lebanese authorities attributed the terrible explosion at the time, which killed more than two hundred people and injured more than 6,500, to a fire that broke out in a warehouse where it was stored, as Diab announced at the time, a number of 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate six years ago without protective measures.
In an interview with several journalists at the Prime Minister’s headquarters, Diab said, according to a statement from his media office, that “the FBI report revealed that the amount that exploded was only 500 tons,” and asked: “¿ Where did the remaining 2,200 tons go? ” An “FBI” team participated in the initial investigation and the Lebanese side provided a copy of their report.
Agence France-Presse was unable to verify or view the content of the report.
French researchers were also involved in the evidence gathering process.
Lebanon refused to conduct an international investigation into the explosion, which severely damaged the country’s main port and several neighborhoods in the capital, displacing tens of thousands of families from their homes that were damaged or destroyed.
Authorities have been investigating the explosion since it occurred, but the judicial investigator, Fadi Sawan, announced this month that the investigations would be suspended for ten days, after two former ministers who were charged in a memorandum asked that the case be transferred to another judge. , according to a judicial source told Agence France-Presse.
On December 10, Sawan had indicted Diab and three former ministers, namely former Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil and former Labor Ministers Ghazi Zuaiter and Youssef Fenianos, but none of them appeared before him at the sessions held. identified for questioning as “defendants.”
The four people are the first political officials indicted by Sawan in the case in which at least 25 high-ranking people responsible for port administration and security were arrested.
Subsequently, Zuaiter and Hassan Khalil submitted a memorandum to the Court of Cassation, which has not yet decided on the request to transfer the case.
On the sixth of this month, Sawan claimed the management and investment of the port on charges of “negligence, negligence and causing the death” of people, according to a judicial source and Agence France-Presse.
The blast sparked widespread anger among the Lebanese, especially after various reports and sources confirmed that authorities, including former and current security services, presidents and officials, were aware of the storage of this material at the port and its dangers.
