Lebanon’s tragedy: Seeking justice 3 years after Beirut blast
Tracy Naggear and 3-year-old Alexandra were badly injured. A few days later the preschooler, nicknamed Lexou, died in hospital.
File photo
By Diana Hodali
WASHINGTON: As August 4 comes around again, so do the memories for the Naggear family. On that date in 2020, the windows in the Naggears’ apartment, located in the Beirut neighborhood of Gemmayzeh, just up the hill from the port, shattered and burst following a huge explosion in the Lebanese capital.
Tracy Naggear and 3-year-old Alexandra were badly injured. A few days later the preschooler, nicknamed Lexou, died in hospital.
“We are not good because it’s been three years now and it’s as if nothing has had happened, as if our daughter was just taken like this by chance, and nobody cares,” Paul Naggear says. The child was one of the youngest victims of the explosion, which eventually claimed the lives of more than 220 people. Thousands more were injured and 300,000 people were displaced after 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate blew up in what was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded. The ammonium nitrate had been improperly stored in a Beirut port warehouse for six years.
Three years on, nobody has been held accountable despite the fact that there is evidence that Lebanese officials and politicians were implicated in the root causes of the explosion. “Unfortunately the investigation into the port explosion has been suspended for a long time in Lebanon,” says Lina Khatib, director of the Middle East Institute at SOAS University in London and an associate fellow at Chatham House.
Khatib is talking about the investigation into the explosion led by Judge Tarek Bitar. Families like the Naggears were optimistic that Bitar, who comes from Akkar in the north of Lebanon and who had a reputation for being incorruptible, would help them. Lebanon doesn’t have a good track record of holding criminals to account, but Bitar’s investigations had seemed to be moving in the right direction. In a rare February 2021 interview with the French-language Beirut newspaper L’Orient-Le Jour, Bitar had said the investigation was a “sacred” cause for him. But there have been many obstacles for Bitar. The investigation was suspended in 2021, after complaints were filed against Bitar by officials who had been summoned for questioning. However, the complaints could not be heard at the court of cassation because the relevant judges retired and were not replaced.
Hundreds of supporters of the Shia group Amal Movement and Hezbollah gather during a protest held to demand the dismissal of judicial investigator Tarek Bitar. Hundreds of supporters of the Shia group Amal Movement and Hezbollah gather during a protest held to demand the dismissal of judicial investigator Tarek Bitar.
In October 2021, the case caused protests in Beirut, some of which became violent. “Judge Tarek Bitar is being attacked because he was clearly indicting and incriminating members of the political elite in the August 4 blast,” Diana Menhem, head of Kulluna Irada, an advocacy group for political reform that is supported financially by Lebanese people from both inside and outside the country.
When Bitar tried to restart the investigation in January 2023, Lebanon’s top prosecutor, another judge, Ghassan Oweidat, said Bitar was doing so despite the unresolved legal challenges. Oweidat also said Bitar was overstepping his judicial authority and issued a travel ban against him. Oweidat also ordered that everyone detained in connection with the investigation so far should be set free again.
“The investigation is stalled because of politically motivated judicial delays that aim to absolve members of the political establishment from accountability,” Khatib says.
