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Al Jazeera
04-08-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Beirut Port blast victims say five years later, justice feels a bit closer
When 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate exploded in Beirut's port on August 4, 2020, it ripped through the city, killing more than 218 people. Among them was three-year-old Alexandra Naggear. Five years later, the investigation into who is at fault for the blast has been delayed, and at times derailed, by political interference. 'The most important thing for us is not for the decision, but for full justice to happen,' Tracy Naggear, Alexandra's mother and a key activist advocating for the blast's victims, told Al Jazeera by phone. 'And we won't accept a half-truth or half-justice.' As the fifth anniversary of the tragedy approaches, there is some optimism that the judicial investigation is finally moving in the right direction after facing obstacles, mostly from well-connected politicians refusing to answer questions and the former public prosecutor blocking the investigation. A decision from the lead prosecutor is expected soon, activists and legal sources familiar with the matter told Al Jazeera. And while the road to justice is still long, for the first time, there is a feeling that momentum is building. Justice derailed 'You can feel a positive atmosphere [this time],' lawyer Tania Daou-Alam told Al Jazeera. Daou-Alam now lives in the United States, but is in Lebanon for the annual commemoration of the blast, which includes protests and a memorial. Her husband of 20 years, Jean-Frederic Alam, was killed by the blast, which was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in modern history. Daou-Alam is also one of nine victims suing the US-based company TGS in a Texas court for $250m, claiming it was involved in chartering the Rhosus, a Moldovan-flagged ship that carried the ammonium nitrate into Beirut's port in 2013. She told Al Jazeera that the case is more about 'demanding accountability and access to documents that would shed more light on the broader chain of responsibility' than it is about compensation. The population of Beirut is used to facing crises without government help. Numerous bombings and assassinations have occurred, with the state rarely, if ever, holding anyone accountable. Frustration and a sense of abandonment by the state, the political system, and the individuals who benefit from it already boiled over into an uprising in October 2019, less than a year before the blast. In the immediate aftermath of the explosion, residents cleaned up the city themselves. Politicians who came for photo opportunities were chased out by angry citizens, and mutual aid filled the gap left by the state. The end of Lebanon's 15-year civil war in 1990 set the tone for the impunity that has plagued the country ever since. Experts and historians say militia leaders traded their fatigues for suits, pardoned each other, awarded themselves ministries and began rerouting the country's resources to their personal coffers. Preliminary investigations found that the explosion was caused by ammonium nitrate stored at Beirut port in improper conditions for six years. They also found that many top officials, including then-President Michel Aoun, had been informed of the ammonium nitrate's presence, but chose not to act. Judge Fadi Sawan was chosen to lead the full investigation in August 2020, but found himself sidelined after calling some notable politicians for questioning. Two ministers he charged with negligence asked that the case be transferred to another judge. A court decision, seen by Reuters, claimed that because Sawan's house had been damaged in the blast, he would not be impartial. Replacing him in February 2021 was Judge Tarek Bitar. Like Sawan, Judge Bitar called major political figures in for questioning and later issued arrest warrants for them. Among them are Ali Hassan Khalil and Ghazi Zeiter, close allies of Lebanon's Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, who still refuse to respond to Judge Bitar's requests and claim they have parliamentary immunity. Despite much popular support, many of Judge Bitar's efforts were impeded, with Lebanon's Internal Security Forces at times refusing to execute warrants and the former Court of Cassation public prosecutor, Ghassan Oueidat, ordering his investigation halted. A new era In early 2025, Lebanon elected a new president, Joseph Aoun, and a new prime minister, Nawaf Salam. In their inaugural addresses, both spoke about the importance of finding justice for the victims of the port explosion. 'The current justice minister seems determined to go all the way, and he has promised that the judge will no longer face any hurdles and that the ministry will provide all help required,' Karim Emile Bitar, a Lebanese political analyst with no relation to the judge investigating the port explosion, told Al Jazeera. Human Rights Watch reported in January 2025 that Judge Bitar had resumed his investigation, 'after two years of being stymied by Lebanese authorities'. On July 29, Salam issued a memorandum declaring August 4 a day of national mourning. On July 17, Aoun met with the families of victims killed in the explosion. 'My commitment is clear: We must uncover the whole truth and hold accountable those who caused this catastrophe,' Aoun said. Oueidat, the former public prosecutor, was replaced by Judge Jamal Hajjar in an acting capacity in 2024, before being confirmed as his successor in April 2025. In March 2025, Hajjar reversed Oueidat's decisions and allowed Judge Bitar to continue his investigation. Legal experts and activists have been pleased by the progress. 'Actual individuals implicated in the case are showing up to interrogations,' Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera. Among them are Tony Saliba, the former director-general of State Security, Abbas Ibrahim, former director-general of the General Directorate of General Security, and Hassan Diab, prime minister at the time of the explosion. But this is still not enough for those wanting justice to be served after five years of battles, activists and experts note. 'We are asking for laws that are able to protect and support the judiciary and the appointments of vacant judge [posts], so these things will show the government is on our side this time,' Daou-Alam said. Even with the new government pushing for accountability, some are still trying to disrupt the process. Hassan Khalil and Zeiter still refuse to appear before Judge Bitar, and a fight has emerged over the country's judicial independence. 'We can only get justice if the judiciary acts independently so that they can go after individuals and so the security services can act independently without political interference,' Kaiss said. Time for accountability The last few years have been a turbulent period of myriad crises for Lebanon. A banking collapse robbed many people of their savings and left the country in a historic economic crisis. Amid that and the COVID-19 pandemic came the blast, and international organisations and experts hold the Lebanese political establishment responsible. 'The time has come to send a signal to Lebanese public opinion that some of those responsible, even if they are in high positions, will be held accountable,' political analyst Bitar said. 'Accountability would be the first step for the Lebanese in Lebanon and the diaspora to regain trust,' he said, 'and without trust, Lebanon will not be able to recover.' Still, Bitar maintained, progress on the port blast dossier doesn't mean every answer will come to the forefront. 'This crime was so huge that, like many similar crimes in other countries, sometimes it takes years and decades, and we never find out what really happened,' he said. Blast victim Tracy Naggear noted that '[our] fight… is mainly for our daughter, for Alexandra, of course'. 'But we are [also] doing it for all the victims and for our country,' she said. '[It's] for every single person that has been touched by the 4th of August, from a simple scratch to a broken window.'
Al Arabiya
02-08-2025
- Al Arabiya
Special Coverage Five years on: Beirut Port blast victims still seek justice in Lebanon
Five years after one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history devastated Beirut's port and surrounding neighborhoods, victims' families and survivors are still fighting for justice as a long-stalled investigation slowly resumes under Lebanon's new government. In an apartment near the Lebanese capital's ravaged port, Paul and Tracy Naggear cradle their two young children born from a determination to keep living after losing everything that mattered most. Their three-year-old daughter Alexandra was among the more than 200 people killed when thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate exploded on August 4, 2020. Half a decade later, the Naggears' grief remains as raw as their anger over a stalled investigation that has yielded no answers, accountability, norjustice for their daughter. 'Our lives were destroyed on the fourth of August when my daughter Alexandra passed away,' Paul Naggear said during an exclusive interview with Al Arabiya English. 'Everything was destroyed, our apartment, our neighborhoods, our future. This is as tragic and traumatizing as you can imagine.' The couple's home on one of Beirut's main thoroughfares bore the full force of the blast that devastated much of the Lebanese capital. On that summer day, the Naggears found themselves among hundreds of thousands of residents living unknowingly in the shadow of a ticking time bomb, the improperly stored ammonium nitrate that had sat in a port warehouse for years. 'My wife and I decided on the day of our daughter's passing that we would continue living. We made the choice to live and to fight for her justice,' Naggear explained. The couple has since welcomed two sons, Axel and Rafael, who 'saved us, definitely, to some extent, and allow us to continue on this path.' But their determination to rebuild their lives has been shadowed by a maddening lack of answers about what caused the explosion that shattered their world. 'There is still no justice, which means that our daughter was taken from us, and still today, there is no accountability. There is no one behind bars,' Naggear said, his voice heavy with frustration. 'We have no idea of the truth of what happened that day.' Haunting questions The questions that haunt the Naggears reflect the broader mystery that continues to engulf Lebanon's deadliest peacetime disaster. They want to know why the ammonium nitrate was stored in front of potentially 300,000 people and households, and why nobody took action to remove the dangerous cargo or safeguard its location. Naggear's account of that chaotic day reveals the human cost of the government's unpreparedness. 'I had to take our daughter to the hospital on a scooter because you can imagine the situation she was in, because there was no immediate relief effort planned,' he recalled. His wife Tracy, who suffered three broken ribs, three broken vertebrae, and a severe head injury, 'had to walk for a very long time until she found a vehicle that took her to the hospital in a very, very bad condition.' In addition to the suffering, the family for four years watched as the investigative judge responsible for the case was systematically obstructed, due to what he described as government harassment. Though Naggear noted that 'the situation now, since earlier this year, has been better,' the fundamental questions about their daughter's death – and the deaths of more than 200 others – remain unanswered. Resuming an investigation Judge Tarek Bitar resumed his investigation into the incident in January after being forced to suspend it in 2021 due to intense political pressure. His renewed probe comes as Lebanon attempts to rebuild credibility under President Joseph Aoun and reformist Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, both of whom have pledged to uphold judicial independence. For Carmen Geha, an academic and consultant who witnessed the blast firsthand, the lack of accountability became unbearable. She left Lebanon three years ago, driven not by the explosion itself, but by what followed – or rather, what didn't. 'I left specifically because of the aftermath of the explosion, specifically because nothing happened after that, and it's been five years and nothing has happened,' Geha told Al Arabiya English. A fellow at Chatham House who was teaching at the American University of Beirut at the time, Geha participated in community cleanup efforts in the weeks following the disaster. 'I was at home, the building shook. I was in Beirut. Everybody thought it was in their own neighborhood,' she recalled of that August afternoon. 'And then we quickly realized that nothing was going to happen.' Investigation faces continued obstacles The devastating port blast was triggered by a fire in a warehouse where tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer had been unsafely stored for years after arriving by ship, despite repeated warnings to senior officials. Multiple investigations have revealed that high-ranking Lebanese officials, including the president at the time, knew about the dangerous materials stored near residential areas. Bitar was accused of bias by several officials named in the probe, including former interior minister Nohad Machnouk, who is suspected of 'negligence and misconduct.' These officials launched a series of legal proceedings against the judge, effectively paralyzing the investigation. The probe was further hampered when Hezbollah, long a dominant force in Lebanese politics but now weakened by its recent war with Israel, accused Bitar of bias and demanded his removal. The militant group's opposition effectively brought the investigation to a halt for over two years. On April 11, two former top security officials appeared before Bitar for the first time since the investigation's resumption. 'Nothing has happened' Yaarob Sakher, a now retired Lebanese army brigadier, anxiously awaited the investigation into the explosion by the state but expresses disappointment, saying that Hezbollah's interference prevented any meaningful results. 'They blocked the investigation and nothing happened until now,' he said. For Geha, the scope of inaction extends far beyond the courtroom. 'Nobody went to jail. There's yet to be a court investigation. There has not been a trial. No victim compensation, bodies and debris and remains were continued to be identified months later.' The explosion was particularly devastating because of its scope and the prior knowledge of officials. 'There were public officials, including the president at the time, that he knew that there was explosive material at the port,' Geha said. 'So that idea that it was kind of building up that creepiness of it. So that's number one very particular kind of crime, second, the level of negligence and corruption that can cover up for something so big.' In the immediate aftermath of the blast, Beirut witnessed an extraordinary outpouring of community solidarity. Geha participated in academic-led initiatives to assess environmental damage and support collapsed small businesses, while volunteers across the city organized cleanup efforts and aid distribution. 'The one positive thing was the short lived, like, community efforts, sort of hope, the hope and the dark that emerges when, when a disaster happens, right?' she said. 'People really, you know, shunned, politicians, called for justice, helped each other, building restaurants, collecting glass, raising money, bringing medicine.' But this grassroots response couldn't compensate for institutional failures. 'That short lived elation could only be short lived, because people cannot fix a country. You need structures,' Geha explained. In addition to what was happening, international aid largely failed to materialize due to lack of trust in Lebanese government institutions. 'The aid didn't come in, and rightfully so, because government institutions couldn't be trusted,' she said. 'The government institutions entrusted with that process of organizing the aid failed, but there was a caretaker government that bulls****ed their way month after month.' Even the volunteer cleanup efforts later proved problematic. 'We realized later that actually, we shouldn't have been cleaning the debris, and that there's asbestos everywhere,' recalled, saying that it 'hurtthe eyes of the young people that were carrying broomsticks.'. Lasting trauma, continuing crisis The explosion occurred against the backdrop of Lebanon's ongoing economic collapse and followed massive anti-government protests in 2019. Rather than spurring meaningful reform, the blast's aftermath saw conditions worsen, culminating in another devastating war with Israel in 2023. 'That early elation then turned to frustration, emigration and increased tensions in the country, because it's a country of misery, of a million refugees that can't work. You have refugee camps that are armed. You have people with school dropouts. You have drug addiction, narcotic state, all on top of the initial elation turned into just horrible,' Geha said. Despite the new government's promises, Geha remains skeptical about prospects for justice. When asked what she hoped to see in the next five years, she called for 'a public trial, a proper process of indictment, a traditional investigation that wins people's hearts and minds. Maybe it's not going to [bring back] the dead, but it might create an impediment for level of evil again.' She said that Lebanon is not unique in experiencing political crimes and crimes against humanity, pointing to international models for truth commissions and transitional justice. 'There is a way to model this. There is a way that we can learn on setting up tools commissions, and there is a way…I really don't know whether there's no inertia.' The current government, led by President Aoun and Prime Minister Salam, has made the right statements about judicial independence, according to Geha. 'Now there is a government that says all the right things…and you know, it looks good, but I don't see why there isn't that destination.' Sakher all but shares Geha's concerns, fearing that the new government could ultimately turn out to be not so different from previous ones. Yet, he keeps wishing for real change and results regarding the investigation. 'Hope is there' The port blast investigation has broader implications for Lebanon's relationship with international partners and its prospects for recovery from multiple crises. The explosion occurred amid a severe economic collapse that has pushed millions into poverty and triggered massive emigration. As Lebanon marks the fifth anniversary of the explosion, the contrast between the scale of the tragedy and the absence of accountability remains unforgiveable said Geha, adding that the lack of progress represents not just a failure of justice, but a fundamental breach of the social contract. 'It's an insult. Honestly.' 'Like a city after war' Farea al-Muslimi, Research Fellow at Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa Program, reflected on how the Beirut port blast fundamentally changed his understanding of conflict and governance in Lebanon. 'Personally, since I was there, first and foremost, the second day after the blast, Beirut looked like a city after a war,' al-Muslimi told Al Arabiya English. The scene, he said, reminded him of war-torn cities in Yemen and elsewhere, leading him to a broader realization about the nature of what Lebanese people were experiencing. 'The explosion made me rethink the very concept of war,' he said, adding what was being done to the Lebanese people constituted a war, but 'they did not have the right to call it a war or even the benefit of a war.' Instead, it was 'a war by their bankers, a war by the system, a war by the sectarian formula in the country – essentially a conflict with many criminals but where 'no one was called a criminal.' Al-Muslimi argued that the situation exemplifies what happens under Lebanon's power-sharing system andhe warned of its real consequences: 'You have a bunch of criminals, a bunch of warlords, and instead of them being in jail, you award them with a political formula that basically gives them new ways to continue launching these wars against civilians.' The researcher emphasized that Lebanon's dignity had been 'shattered' because those in power faced no accountability despite their failures. This lack of consequences, he suggested, stems from the need to maintain the country's sectarian power-sharing balance. Looking ahead, al-Muslimi expressed uncertainty about Lebanon's path forward. Five years after the blast, he questioned how the country could 'pull things together and move forward' without holding anyone accountable for what happened.
