Following decades of government mismanagement and corruption at Beirut’s port, on August 4, 2020, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history pulverized the port and damaged over half the city. The explosion resulted from the detonation of tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a combustible chemical compound commonly used in agriculture as a high nitrate fertilizer, but which can also be used to manufacture explosives. The cargo of ammonium nitrate had entered Beirut’s port on a Moldovan-flagged ship, the Rhosus, in November 2013, and had been offloaded into hangar 12 in Beirut’s port on October 23 and 24, 2014.
The Beirut port explosion killed 218 people, including nationals of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Philippines, Pakistan, Palestine, the Netherlands, Canada, Germany, France, Australia, and the United States. It wounded 7,000 people, of whom at least 150 acquired a physical disability; caused untold psychological harm; and damaged 77,000 apartments, displacing over 300,000 people. At least three children between the ages of 2 and 15 lost their lives. Thirty-one children required hospitalization, 1,000 children were injured, and 80,000 children were left without a home. The explosion affected 163 public and private schools and rendered half of Beirut’s healthcare centers nonfunctional, and it impacted 56 percent of the private businesses in Beirut. There was extensive damage to infrastructure, including transport, energy, water supply, and sanitation, and municipal services totaling US$390-475 million in losses. According to the World Bank, the explosion caused an estimated $3.8-4.6 billion in material damage.
The explosion also resulted in ammonia gas and nitrogen oxides being released into the air, potentially with toxins from other materials that may have also ignited as a result of the explosion. Ammonia gas and nitrogen oxides are harmful to the environment as well as to the respiratory system. The destruction is estimated to have created up to 800,000 tonnes of construction and demolition waste that likely contains hazardous chemicals that can damage health through direct exposure, or soil and water contamination. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has estimated that the cost of cleaning up the environmental degradation from the explosion will be over $100 million.
The evidence, as currently known, raises questions regarding whether the ammonium nitrate was intended for Mozambique as the Rhosus’s shipping documents stated, or whether Beirut was the intended destination for the material. The evidence currently available also indicates that multiple Lebanese authorities were, at a minimum, criminally negligent under Lebanese law in their handling of the Rhosus’s cargo. The actions and omissions of Lebanese authorities created an unreasonable risk to life. Under international human rights law, a state’s failure to act to prevent foreseeable risks to life is a violation of the right to life.
In addition, evidence strongly suggests that some government officials foresaw the death that the ammonium nitrate’s presence in the port could result in and tacitly accepted the risk of the deaths occurring. Under domestic law, this could amount to the crime of homicide with probable intent, and/or unintentional homicide. It also amounts to a violation of the right to life under international human rights law.
A chronology of events related to the Rhosus and its cargo, starting in September 2013, can be found in Annex 1 of this report.
In this report, Human Rights Watch details the evidence of omissions and actions by officials that, in a context of longstanding corruption and mismanagement at the port, allowed for such a potentially explosive compound to be haphazardly stored there for nearly six years. The very design of the port’s management structure was developed to share power between political elites. It maximized opacity and allowed corruption and mismanagement to flourish.
Drawing on official correspondence regarding the Rhosus and its cargo, some of which has not been published before, the report outlines what is currently known about how the ammonium nitrate arrived in Beirut and was stored in hangar 12 in the port. Through a review of dozens of official documents sent from and to officials working under the Ministry of Finance, including customs officials; the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, including port officials; members of the judiciary; the Case Authority (a body at the Ministry of Justice which acts as the legal representative of the Lebanese state in judicial proceedings); members of the Higher Defense Council, including the president and prime minister; the Ministry of Interior; General Security; and State Security, among others, the report provides insights into which government officials knew about the ammonium nitrate and what actions they took or failed to take to safeguard the population from its dangerous long-term presence there. Interviews with government, security, and judicial officials, defense lawyers for officials who have been charged, investigative journalists, and others, provided further insights into the actions government officials took or failed to take despite being informed of the risks.
Evidence indicates that many of Lebanon’s senior leaders, including President Michel Aoun, then-Prime Minister Hassan Diab, the Director General of State Security, Major General Tony Saliba, former Lebanese Army Commander, General Jean Kahwaji, former Minister of Finance, Ali Hassan Khalil, former Minister of Public Works and Transport, Ghazi Zeaitar, and former Minister of Public Works and Transport, Youssef Fenianos, among others, were informed of risks posed by the ammonium nitrate and failed to take the necessary actions to protect the public.
Official correspondence reflects that once the ship arrived in Beirut, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Public Works and Transport officials failed to correctly communicate or adequately investigate the potentially explosive and combustible nature of the ship’s cargo, and the danger it posed. Ministry of Public Works and Transport officials inaccurately described the cargo’s risks in their requests to the judiciary to offload the merchandise and knowingly stored the ammonium nitrate in Beirut’s port alongside flammable or explosive materials for nearly six years in a poorly secured and ventilated hangar in the middle of a densely populated commercial and residential area. Their practices contravened international ammonium nitrate safe storage and handling guidance. Neither they, nor any security agency operating in the port, took adequate steps to secure the material or establish an adequate emergency response plan or precautionary measures, should a fire break out in the port. They also reportedly failed to adequately supervise the repair work undertaken on hangar 12 that may have triggered the explosion on August 4, 2020.
Official correspondence also indicates that port, customs, and army officials ignored steps they could have taken to secure or destroy the material.
Customs officials repeatedly took steps to sell or re-export the ammonium nitrate that were procedurally incorrect. But instead of correcting their procedural error, they persisted with these same incorrect interventions despite repeatedly being told of the procedural problems by the judiciary. Legal experts even state that customs officials could have acted unilaterally to remove the ammonium nitrate and that they could have sold it at public auction or disposed of it without a judicial order, which they never took steps to do.
The Lebanese Army Command brushed off knowledge of the ammonium nitrate in hangar 12, saying they had no need for the material, even after learning its nitrogen grade classified it under local law as material used to manufacture explosives and required army approval to be imported and inspection. Despite being responsible for all security issues related to munitions at the port, and being informed of the ammonium nitrate in hangar 12, Military Intelligence took no apparent steps to secure the material or establish an appropriate emergency response plan or precautionary measures.
All of this was done despite repeated warnings about the dangerous nature of ammonium nitrate and the devastating consequences that could follow from its presence in the port.
Even after security officials from the Lebanese General Directorate of State Security, the executive agency of the Higher Defense Council chaired by the president, completed an investigation into the ammonium nitrate at the port, there was an unconscionable delay in reporting the threat to senior government officials, and the information they provided about the threats posed by the material was incomplete.
Both the then-Minister of Interior and the Director General of General Security have acknowledged that they knew about the ammonium nitrate aboard the Rhosus, but have said that they did not take action after learning about it because it was not within their jurisdiction to do so.
Once they were informed by State Security, other senior officials on Lebanon’s Higher Defense Council, including the president and the prime minister, also failed to act in a timely way to remove the threat.
Relying on public sources and interviews with impacted individuals, the report recounts the devastating events of August 4 that led to violations of the right to life and other human rights abuses, such as violations of the rights to education and to an adequate standard of living, including the rights to food, housing, health, and property.
Finally, the report documents the failings of the Lebanese domestic investigation into the blast.
In the aftermath of the blast, Lebanese officials vowed that the cause of the explosion would be investigated vigorously and expeditiously. In August 2020, 30 UN experts publicly laid out benchmarks, based on international human rights standards, for a credible inquiry into the blast, noting that it should be “protected from undue influence,” “integrate a gender lens,” “grant victims and their relatives effective access to the investigative process,” and “be given a strong and broad mandate to effectively probe any systemic failures of the Lebanese authorities.”
In the year since the blast, however, a range of procedural and systemic flaws in the domestic investigation have rendered it incapable of credibly delivering justice. These flaws include a lack of judicial independence, immunity for high-level political officials, lack of respect for fair trial standards, and due process violations.
Lebanese authorities have ensured that the domestic investigation that they authorized would remain carefully circumscribed. On August 13, the justice minister named Fadi Sawan the judicial investigator responsible for the investigation. Judge Sawan brought charges against 37 people, but with the exception of the heads of the customs administration and port authority, those detained were mostly mid- to low-level customs, port, and security officials.
While only relatively lower-level officials were detained, senior officials knew of the ammonium nitrate being stored in the port, had a responsibility to act to secure and remove it, and failed to do so. However, investigations of their responsibility have been stymied due to various types of immunities applicable to ministers, parliamentarians, lawyers, and others.
In November 2020, Judge Sawan wrote to parliament asking them to investigate 12 current and former ministers for their role in the August 4 explosion and then refer them to a special body that Lebanese law empowers to try ministers. However, Nabih Berri, the speaker of the parliament, refused to act.
In December 2020, in the absence of parliamentary action, Judge Sawan charged the Caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab, and three former government ministers – Ghazi Zeaiter, former Minister of Public Works and Transport; Ali Hassan Khalil, former Minister of Finance; and Youssef Fenianos, former Minister of Public Works and Transport —with criminal negligence related to the blast. The judge was immediately challenged for not having accepted the immunity that politicians typically enjoy in Lebanon. Two of the former ministers, who are also members of Parliament, filed a complaint before the Court of Cassation, the country’s highest court, for Judge Sawan to be removed from the case and in February 2021, the court removed him. His replacement, investigative judge Tarek Bitar, is operating under the same prosecutorial limitations.
On July 2, 2021, Judge Bitar submitted a request to parliament to lift parliamentary immunity for former ministers Khalil, Zeaiter, and Nohad Machnouk, the former Minister of Interior. They are all currently parliamentarians. He also wrote to the Beirut and Tripoli Bar Associations, requesting permission as required by Lebanese law to prosecute former ministers Khalil, Zeaiter, and Fenianos, all of whom are lawyers. Both the Tripoli and Beirut Bar Association approved Bitar’s request to prosecute Khalil, Zeaiter, and Fenianos. As of July 29, 2021, parliament has still not lifted the immunity of these parliamentarians.
Bitar also requested permission to prosecute Major General Abbas Ibrahim, the Director General of General Security, from the Interior Minister, and he requested permission from Caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab to interrogate Major General Tony Saliba, the head of State Security, as a suspect. Judge Sawan had previously charged Saliba. On July 9, 2021, Caretaker Interior Minister Mohammad Fehmi refused Bitar’s request to prosecute Ibrahim, but Bitar appealed Fehmi’s decision and referred the case to the Cassation Public Prosecution. Cassation Attorney General Ghassan Khoury told Human Rights Watch that he denied Bitar’s request to prosecute Ibrahim. As of July 29, 2021, neither Prime Minister Diab nor President Aoun nor the Higher Defense Council had responded to Bitar’s request to interrogate Saliba as a suspect.
Bitar brought charges against former Lebanese Army Commander, General Jean Kahwaji, and three former senior officials in Military Intelligence.
The right to life is an inalienable right, enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) (article 6), which Lebanon ratified in 1972. The Human Rights Committee, which interprets the ICCPR, has stated that states must respect and ensure the right to life against deprivations caused by persons or entities, even if their conduct is not attributable to the state. The Committee further states that the deprivation of life involves an “intentional or otherwise foreseeable and preventable life-terminating harm or injury, caused by an act or omission.” States are required to enact a “protective legal framework which includes criminal prohibitions on all manifestations of violence…that are likely to result in a deprivation of life, such as intentional and negligent homicide.” They are also obligated to investigate and prosecute potential cases of unlawful deprivations of the right to life, and to provide an effective remedy for human rights violations.
Survivors of the explosion and the families of the victims have been vocal in calling for an international investigation, expressing their lack of faith in domestic mechanisms. They also argue that the steps taken by the Lebanese authorities so far are wholly inadequate to achieve accountability as they rely on flawed processes that are neither independent nor impartial.
As one year passes since the explosion, the case for such an international investigation has only strengthened. The Human Rights Council (HRC) has the opportunity to assist Lebanon to meet its human rights obligations by mandating an investigative mission into the August 4, 2020 explosion to identify the causes of, and responsibility for, the blast, and what steps need to be taken to ensure an effective remedy for victims.
The independent investigative mission should identify what triggered the explosion and whether there were failures in the obligation to protect the right to life that led to the explosion at Beirut’s port on August 4, 2020, including failures to ensure the safe storage or removal of a large quantity of combustible and potentially explosive material. It should also identify failures in the domestic investigation of the blast that would constitute a violation of the right to an effective remedy and the right to life. It should make recommendations on measures necessary to guarantee that the authors of these violations and abuses, regardless of their affiliation or seniority, are held accountable for their acts and to address the underlying systemic failures that led to the explosion and to the limited scope of the domestic investigation.
The independent investigative mission should report on the other human rights impaired or violated by the explosion and failures by the Lebanese authorities and make recommendations to Lebanon and the international community on steps that are needed both to remedy the violations and to ensure that similar violations do not occur in the future.
In addition, countries with Global Magnitsky and other human rights and corruption sanction regimes should sanction officials implicated in ongoing violations of human rights related to the August 4 blast and efforts to undermine accountability. Human rights and corruption sanctions would reaffirm states’ commitments to promoting accountability for perpetrators of serious human rights abuse and provide additional leverage to those pressing for accountability through domestic judicial proceedings.