The Lebanese judge leading an investigation into the devastating 2020 Beirut port explosion questioned two port employees on Friday, resuming his probe after years of obstruction, according to four judicial and two security officials.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the media.
On 4 August, 2020, hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate detonated in a Beirut Port warehouse, killing at least 218 people, injuring more than 6,000 and devastating large swaths of the capital. The blast, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history, caused billions of dollars in damage and sent shockwaves through the nation’s capital.
The probe into the causes of the blast, led by Judge Tarek Bitar, has faced years of obstacles that at one point appeared to have halted the investigation altogether.
Officials implicated in the case accused Bitar of being biased in his investigation, refused to testify, demanded his removal and filed legal complaints against him.
In 2023, then-chief prosecutor Ghassan Oweidat ordered the release of 17 detainees, including port and customs officials, who had been held in pre-trial detention since the explosion. Bitar and legal experts condemned the move as unlawful.
The investigation resumed around mid-January, a move that coincided with major political changes in Lebanon.
Those included the election of Joseph Aoun, a former Lebanese army commander, as president, ending a two-year vacuum, and the appointment of Nawaf Salam, a diplomat and former International Court of Justice judge, as prime minister-designate.
Both are viewed as outside Lebanon’s entrenched political establishment, which includes dozens of figures charged in the port fiasco by Bitar.
In his oath speech, Aoun emphasised that “to build a nation, we must all be under the rule of law,” condemning “mafias, security enclaves” and any “interference in the judiciary or police stations”. He called for “no special protections, favoritism or immunity for criminals, corrupt individuals or offenders”.
The port employees Bitar questioned on Friday included Salim Shibli, owner of Shibli Contracting and Maintenance, which had conducted repairs at Warehouse 12, the site of the explosion, the judicial and security officials said.
Shibli stated that his team completed repairs and left an hour before a fire that preceded the explosion broke out at the port. He insisted that the welding performed could not have caused the fire, according to the officials.
Another defendant questioned was Rabih Srour, a security official at Warehouse 12, who cooperated fully with Bitar’s questioning, the officials said.
Four other defendants who were summoned for questioning, including the former head of Beirut customs and the owner of the shipment containing the ammonium nitrate stored at the port, did not appear Friday. Some of them pledged to appear at a later date, the officials said.
In the coming months, they said, Bitar plans to interrogate other top customs officials and senior security and political figures.
Earlier this year, Lebanon’s chief prosecutor Jamal Hajjar and top judge Suhail Abboud met with Bitar multiple times, seeking a legal settlement to secure cooperation from high-ranking officials. Hajjar proposed that Bitar limit his investigation to medium- and low-level port employees while other courts handled senior officials’ cases. Bitar rejected the proposal, insisting on issuing an indictment by the end of the year.
