Grief and Wrath as Lebanon Marks Year since Deadly Blast

A picture taken with a drone shows a general view of the site of the Aug. 4, 2020 explosion in Beirut's port, after almost a year since the blast, Lebanon August 2, 2021. REUTERS/Imad Creidi
A picture taken with a drone shows a general view of the site of the Aug. 4, 2020 explosion in Beirut's port, after almost a year since the blast, Lebanon August 2, 2021. REUTERS/Imad Creidi
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Grief and Wrath as Lebanon Marks Year since Deadly Blast

A picture taken with a drone shows a general view of the site of the Aug. 4, 2020 explosion in Beirut's port, after almost a year since the blast, Lebanon August 2, 2021. REUTERS/Imad Creidi
A picture taken with a drone shows a general view of the site of the Aug. 4, 2020 explosion in Beirut's port, after almost a year since the blast, Lebanon August 2, 2021. REUTERS/Imad Creidi

Lebanon on Wednesday marks a year since a cataclysmic explosion ravaged Beirut, with a mix of grief over lost lives and rage at the impunity for its worst peacetime disaster at a time when its economy was already in tatters.

Shortly after 6:00 pm on August 4, 2020, a stock of ammonium nitrate fertilizer haphazardly stored at the city's port exploded and left swathes of the Lebanese capital looking like a war zone.

What went down as one of the largest non-nuclear blasts in history killed at least 214 people, levelled entire neighborhoods and irreparably scarred the nation's psyche as well deepening the country's economic abyss.

With more than half the country living under the poverty line, former colonial power France aims to raise humanitarian aid at another international conference co-hosted by the UN on the day of the anniversary. President Emmanuel Macron hopes to gather $350 million.

Families of the dead and survivors have planned vigils, prayers, ceremonies and marches to honor those who perished in a blast whose shockwave was felt as far away as Cyprus, said Agence France-Presse.

Port workers were buried under gutted grain silos, firefighters battling the fire that preceded the blast were pulverized, commuters crushed to death and residents lacerated by supersonic shards of glass bled out in their homes.

Many will stay home on what was declared a national day of mourning, but last year's shock soon gave way to an anger that has only grown with every day the crime stays unpunished.

The country's already reviled political class has hidden behind its proclaimed immunity to avoid prosecution, stalling the lead investigating the judge's work at every turn.

In a press conference on Monday, relatives of blast victims called on authorities to lift immunity within three days, warning that they are willing to "break bones" in upcoming protests.

"We are done with routine and peaceful demonstrations ... beware of our anger," said Ibrahim Hoteit, a spokesperson for the families.

- 'Shameless obstruction' -
One protest is due to wind up in front of parliament, where no move has been taken towards accepting accountability.

Amnesty International accused the Lebanese authorities of "shamelessly obstructing" justice, while Human Rights Watch published a long report accusing them of "criminal negligence".

According to foreign and Lebanese intelligence reports seen by AFP, hundreds of tons of fertilizer were carelessly stored in the same warehouse as ton of fireworks and rolls of detonating cord, among other dangerous materials.

The reports, all dating back to last year, suggest that welding work caused the original fire.

However, more thorough investigations have yet to ascertain that fact and answer how the shipment got there in the first place, or why the deadly assortment of hazardous materials was left to fester in the same location for years.

Lebanon's parliamentarians -- some of whom have been nicknamed the "nitrate deputies" on social media -- are ignoring intense international pressure and threats of sanctions.

They have yet to agree on a government lineup despite being given a mid-September deadline last year by Paris, which has spearheaded an aid drive conditioned on reform.

A first donor conference for Lebanon in the immediate aftermath of the blast collected 280 million euros ($332 million at current rates).

Lebanon's descent into chaos had already started before the port blast, with a bankrupt state trapping people's savings in banks and the national currency nosediving on the black market.

The country is now facing medicine, fuel and clean water shortages that are compounding the national post-blast trauma, crippling a health sector facing a new wave of Covid infections and leading all of those who can to emigrate.



A British TV Art Expert Who Sold Works to a Suspected Hezbollah Financier is Sentenced to Prison

FILED - 27 October 2023, Iran, Chomein: A woman sorts flags of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia in a factory. Photo: Arne Immanuel Bansch/dpa
FILED - 27 October 2023, Iran, Chomein: A woman sorts flags of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia in a factory. Photo: Arne Immanuel Bansch/dpa
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A British TV Art Expert Who Sold Works to a Suspected Hezbollah Financier is Sentenced to Prison

FILED - 27 October 2023, Iran, Chomein: A woman sorts flags of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia in a factory. Photo: Arne Immanuel Bansch/dpa
FILED - 27 October 2023, Iran, Chomein: A woman sorts flags of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia in a factory. Photo: Arne Immanuel Bansch/dpa

An art expert who appeared on the BBC's Bargain Hunt show was sentenced Friday to two and a half years in prison for failing to report his sale of pricey works to a suspected financier of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group.
At a previous hearing, Oghenochuko Ojiri, 53, had pleaded guilty to eight offenses under the Terrorism Act 2000. The art sales for about 140,000 pounds ($185,000) to Nazem Ahmad, a diamond and art dealer sanctioned by the UK and US as a Hezbollah financier, took place between October 2020 and December 2021. The sanctions were designed to prevent anyone in the UK or US from trading with Ahmad or his businesses, The Associated Press said.
Ojiri, who also appeared on the BBC’s Antiques Road Trip, faced a possible sentence of five years in prison in the hearing at London’s Central Criminal Court, which is better known as the Old Bailey.
In addition to the prison term, Justice Bobbie Cheema-Grubb said Ojiri faces an additional year on license — a period of time after a prison sentence ends when an offender must stay out of trouble or risk going back to prison.
She told Ojiri he had been involved in a commercial relationship “for prestige and profit” and that until his involvement with Ahmad, he was “someone to be admired.”
“You knew about Ahmad’s suspected involvement in financing terrorism and the way the art market can be exploited by someone like him," she said. "This is the nadir — there is one direction your life can go and I am confident that you will not be in front of the courts again.”
The Met’s investigation into Ojiri was carried out alongside Homeland Security in the US, which is conducting a wider investigation into alleged money laundering by Ahmad using shell companies.
“This prosecution, using specific Terrorism Act legislation, is the first of its kind and should act as a warning to all art dealers that we can, and will, pursue those who knowingly do business with people identified as funders of terrorist groups,” said Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command.
Ahmad was sanctioned in 2019 by the US Treasury, which said he was a prominent Lebanon-based money launderer involved in smuggling blood diamonds, which are mined in conflict zones and sold to finance violence.
Two years ago, the UK Treasury froze Ahmad’s assets because he financed Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite militant organization that has been designated an international terrorist group.
Following Ojiri's arrest in April 2023, the Met obtained a warrant to seize a number of artworks, including a Picasso and Andy Warhol paintings, belonging to Ahmad and held in two warehouses in the UK The collection, valued at almost 1 million pounds, is due to be sold with the funds to be reinvested back into the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Home Office.