"For justice and accountability, we persevere." This is the slogan chosen by the relatives of the victims for the commemorations, three years after the disaster, of the double explosion that occurred on August 4, 2020 in the port of Beirut, which killed at least 220 people, injured more than 6,500 and ravaged the Lebanese capital.
The organizers called on the Lebanese to participate massively in the demonstrations planned at home and abroad to prevent this cause from falling into oblivion.
The cataclysmic explosions were caused by a fire in the hangar where hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate were stored, with no safety measures since they were unloaded in the port of Beirut in 2013. Since the tragedy, the families have been in search of justice and truth, supported in this fight by an accusation office set up by the Beirut Bar Association.
"When the explosions took place, none of the components of the Lebanese state reacted," said Nasri Diab, a professor at the Faculties of Law and a lawyer at the Beirut and Paris Bars. Only private initiatives have emerged, including the establishment of an indictment office at the disposal of victims and representatives of deceased victims, composed of about twenty lawyers, including myself, who have been working free of charge for three years."
The paralyzed investigation
From the beginning, the philosophy of this office is "to try to obtain justice in Lebanon," says the lawyer, who is one of the co-founders. "We submitted a criminal complaint on behalf of each of the victims who gave us power of attorney, i.e. 1,200 complaints that were obviously subsequently consolidated into a single main file that is before the investigating judge Tarek Bitar."
However, the investigation conducted in Lebanon by this judge, in office for two and a half years, remains paralyzed by the multiple appeals for relinquishment and invalidation filed against him by former ministers and deputies targeted by prosecutions.
Accused by part of the political class of exceeding his functions, target of intense pressure, Tarek Bitar has not obtained the lifting of the immunities of several former elected officials and security officials he wishes to question.
Tarek Bitar, investigating judge at the Court of Justice in the case of the double explosion of 4 August 2020 at the port of Beirut. © Screenshot via NNA
After relaunching his investigation in January, after 13 months of suspension, he found himself at the heart of a legal battle between him and the prosecutor general at the Court of Cassation, Judge Ghassan Oueidate.
The latter accuses Tarek Bitar, who implicated him in the port affair, of "usurpation of power" and "rebellion against justice". Ghassan Oueidate had even forbidden officials of the cassation prosecutor's office to respond to the requests of the investigating judge, and on 25 January ordered the release of the 17 individuals still in pre-trial detention in connection with the case.
"The goal was for justice to be done somewhere"
"In recent years, there have been a number of delaying tactics on the part of those prosecuted by Judge Tarek Bitar, or requests for recusal, requests for legitimate suspicion against him, etc.," Diab said. So we ourselves are fighting trying to refute each of these actions separately. There are about forty of them and you can't imagine the volume of work involved in these side battles."
However, the lawyer intends to recall that there have been, in the context of the politico-judicial tug-of-war, dozens of judges who have been seized in one capacity or another and who have rendered courageous decisions.
Read alsoIn Beirut, the remains of grain silos or the challenge of a collective memory
"Before the machine seized up, there were requests for recusal against Judge Bitar that were rejected, and we saw judges who had the courage to take a decision of precautionary seizure of the property of two ministers who are directly involved in the case. Other magistrates have made decisions in sub-cases, and all this proves that our hopes for justice in Lebanon were well founded."
In parallel with the Lebanese investigation, the Indictment Office of the Beirut Bar Association has turned abroad, seeking to prosecute all those suspected of involvement in the case before foreign jurisdictions with international jurisdiction. This is done on the basis of the nationality of the victims, the location of the registered office of the legal persons or the domicile of the natural persons concerned, or other connecting factors.
"We have tried to see which foreign national courts can be competent and recommended civil actions in order to obtain compensation for the victims we represent," says Nasri Diab. We have refrained from going to international criminal law so as not to interfere with the Lebanese criminal trial."
Beyond the purely pecuniary aspect, "the objective was that justice be done somewhere against one of the links in the chain responsible for the explosion," he says. So we are not too ambitious, we are careful not to say that we want to be able to determine the responsibility of all the links in the chain, because it is a huge chain composed of 1,000 actors."
A mysterious English society
It is in this context that Nasri Diab opts for the United Kingdom and its judicial system. "I selected this country because Savaro Ltd, whose name appears in the documents for the purchase and transport of the cargo of ammonium nitrate that exploded in the port of Beirut, is an English company that was incorporated in 2006 and whose head office is located in England," he said.
The involvement of this chemical trading company was revealed in January 2021, by Lebanese investigative journalist Firas Hatoum, on al-Jadeed channel. He reveals that Savaro Ltd is behind the order of ammonium nitrate from a Georgian plant in July 2013.
During his research, the journalist discovered Savaro Ltd's links with the Syrian regime: a shell company based in Cyprus, Savaro turned out to be domiciled at the same address as the company Hesco Engineering and Construction, belonging to a Russian-Syrian businessman linked to the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Digging deeper, the journalist learns that Savaro Ltd is registered in the United Kingdom and shares the same address as IK Petroleum Industrial Company Limited, created less than a month before the export note for the shipment of ammonium nitrate was issued. The latter belongs to another Russian-Syrian businessman close to Damascus, and whose own brother, under US sanctions, is accused of being linked to an attempt, in 2013, to import ammonium nitrate to Syria under embargo.
Thus, after the selection of some victims, a civil complaint was filed on 2 August 2021 before the High Court of Justice of London against Savaro Ltd, by Melhem Khalaf, the former President of Beirut and current MP, in cooperation with the office of the lawyer and former Lebanese Minister Camille Abousleimane.
" READ ALSO Faced with the crisis, Lebanese youth in search of a better future abroad
"We had to act quickly because in January 2021, we discovered that Savaro Ltd was trying to go into liquidation to escape everything," says Nasri Diab. The Beirut Bar Association took the necessary administrative measures with the London Commercial Register to oppose in extremis this request for reverse charge, which allowed the lawsuit against Savaro Ltd." The liquidation of the company would have made any prosecution impossible.
In June 2023, after a first judgment rendered in February of the same year establishing the civil liability of Savaro Ltd, the High Court of Justice ordered the payment of more than one million dollars in compensation for the four people, victims and relatives of the victims concerned. A decision hailed as a victory by the victims and their legal defenders.
"This sentence is important, it represents a great victory, because since the explosions, there had been no final court decision against any of the links in the chain involved," Diab said.
"We will take it even in China this justice, if it is available there"
"At the last hearing in London, I thanked the English judge telling him that I would have liked to be before a Lebanese judge dispensing justice on the merits," Diab said. But hey, we will take it even in China this justice, if it is available there."
Since this decision, the Indictment Office has sought to enforce the judgement while the identity of the final economic beneficiaries of Savaro Ltd remains unknown. And this, even though in January 2021, two British parliamentarians had called for an investigation into Savaro Ltd which should have provided the register of companies with the names of its owners.
In June 2022, the High Court of Justice in London ordered the company to reveal the identity of its owners. In vain: the woman mentioned as the owner of the company admitted in an email to Reuters that she was acting on behalf of another beneficial owner, but refused to disclose her identity.
During the London trial, the shareholders of Savaro Ltd transferred ownership of their shares to a Ukrainian national, residing in Ukraine, "as established in the company's file with the English Commercial Register," Diab said.
Pending the resolution of this mystery, the Indictment Bureau, strengthened in its strategy in London, intends to continue on the path of internationalization of civil actions.
In particular, it is closely following the investigation opened in France in August 2020, due to the presence of two French nationals among the victims, entrusted to two investigating judges of the collective accidents division of the Paris judicial court.
On 18 January, Judge Tarek Bitar met with a French judicial delegation that had come to Lebanon as part of their investigations.
"We are thinking of entering the French file to assist the civil parties in the investigation file, so without being directly involved, concludes Nasri Diab. In addition, I am looking for other domestic jurisdictions abroad and I already have Canada in mind because there are a number of binational victims holding passports from this country."
The summary of the weekFrance 24 invites you to look back on the news that marked the week
I subscribe
Take international news with you everywhere! Download the France 24 app