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According to Captain Boris Prokoshev, the ship Rhosus did not have to stop in Beirut at all. The 70-year-old was captain of Rhosus in 2013.
The shipowner told him to stop unexpectedly in Lebanon to collect additional cargo. Prokoshev revealed that his ship was carrying 2,750 tons of highly flammable ammonium nitrate from Georgia to Mozambique when it was ordered to set sail for Beirut.
Rhosus’s crew were ordered to load the ship with heavy road equipment, sail to the Jordanian port city of Aqaba and continue to Africa, where an explosives company was waiting for ammonium nitrate. However, the ship did not leave Beirut. Initially, the crew were unable to safely load the additional cargo and then a long legal dispute over port fees began.
The captain and lawyers representing various creditors accused the owner of Rhosus of leaving the ship at will until he was finally arrested. A few months later, for safety reasons, the ammonium nitrate was unloaded and taken to a depot at the port.
On Tuesday, August 4, the chemical caught fire and exploded. The massive explosion claimed the lives of 145 people, about 5,000. several buildings injured and destroyed and damaged, leaving more than a quarter of a million people homeless.
Rhosus could have left Beirut if the crew had managed to load the additional cargo. As the legal dispute continued, the captain and crew spent nearly 11 months on the ship stranded in port. They were not paid and food supplies were limited. When the crew left Rhosus, ammonium nitrate was discharged. Prokoshev said the ship belonged to Russian businessman I. Gracushkin, but Reuters did not contact him.
Georgian fertilizer producer Rustavi Azot sold ammonium nitrate. It was aimed at Fabrica de Explosivos, an explosives company based in Mozambique.
A chief spokeswoman for Fabrica de Explosivos did not immediately respond to a request for comment on LinkedIn. Levan Burdiladze, director of the Rustavi Azot plant, told Reuters that his company had only operated the chemical plant for the past three years, so he could not confirm that ammonium nitrate was produced there. Burdiladze called the decision to store the chemical in a Beirut port a “serious violation of safe storage rules”, especially since ammonium nitrate loses its beneficial properties within six months.
The ministries said the Lebanese cabinet decided on Wednesday to arrest all Beirut port officials responsible for cargo storage and security since 2014.
The Beirut port chief and the customs chief said that several letters had been sent to the relevant authorities requesting the recall of the chemical, but that no action had been taken.
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