Today, August 4, marks six years since the explosion that devastated the Port of Beirut. It reduced the heart of the city to ashes, caused immense destruction, and killed hundreds. The tragedy placed justice at the front of every demand made by the capital and its people. Yet despite a series of prosecutorial decisions, not one official has asked the people for forgiveness. To this day, no indictment has been issued, and no one has been held to account.
Those responsible kept their posts. For years they took shelter behind the growing dominance of Hezbollah's "statelet," which threatened to "jail" the investigating judge, Tarek Bitar. Even now, the questions about the delay in the indictment go unanswered.
What is etched into the memory of citizens is that they were abandoned on that terrible evening. The dead lay at the port, in the streets, and inside their homes. The wounded bled. Destruction was everywhere, and Beirut was no longer Beirut. Yet from beneath the ashes rose young men and women who came from every part of Lebanon to tend the wounds of the capital and its people.
The chain of events before the blast confirms that Beirut could have been spared. On May 28, 2020, Major Joseph al-Naddaf completed his report on the ammonium nitrate stored in Warehouse 12. He called the public prosecutor, relayed his findings, and warned that if the material caught fire, the explosion would be powerful enough to destroy the port.
On June 1, 2020, he delivered a written copy of the report to his superiors at the State Security Directorate and to Public Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat. Copies reached Prime Minister Hassan Diab, President Michel Aoun, and other senior officials.
The port explosion, the engineered financial collapse that preceded it, the catastrophe of defeat, the occupation drawn in by illegitimate weapons- behind all of it lies one disaster: the absence of justice and the dominance of a corrupt establishment. The fear is real that justice will stay obstructed as long as the domestic balance of power remains distorted, forcing the Lebanese again and again to choose between injustice and civil war.
Six years on, the executive authority carries a heavy responsibility: to press for the indictment and to protect it. That would open the door to accountability and begin to close the chapter on the deep state that concealed grave crimes.
In one publicly disclosed line of the investigation, Judge Bitar moved to charge, with the felony of "probable intent to kill"- dolus eventualis- anyone who received a report, was contacted, or was otherwise warned of a possible catastrophe from the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored at the port, and still failed to act.
Michel Aoun, in whose presidency the Lebanese were sent into hell, admitted that he had known. He claimed the constitution shielded him from accountability. The ministers facing charges asked how they could have known a disaster would come from "a piece of paper they had received."
Yet the evidence available from before the crime of the century points to Oueidat as more centrally involved than others given the sensitive judicial position he held.
