Close to a month after the catastrophic Beirut Port explosion wreaked havoc in the Lebanese capital, the Lebanese authorities have reportedly arrested all suspects in relation to the deadly incident.
On Tuesday, 4 military officers were detained. The suspects are Brig. Gen. Antoine Salloum, Maj. Joseph Al-Naddaf, Maj. Charbel Fawwaz, and Maj. Daoud Fayyad.
Respectively, the detained are the head of military intelligence at Beirut Port, a State Security officer, and two General Security officers.
The security bodies to which these officers belong are the main ones responsible for overseeing the security of the Port of Beirut, in cooperation with the head of the Port and the director-general of Lebanese Customs, both of whom had been detained earlier in August.
The detainment warrants of the 4 officers were issued by Judicial Investigator Judge Fadi Sawan after interrogating them, bringing the total number of people arrested in relation to the blast to 25.
On Monday, Judge Sawan interrogated 5 suspects and warranted their arrest as well.
These are Director of Land and Maritime Transport Abdel Hafiz Kaissi and Director of Beirut Port Mohammed Al-Mawla, in addition to 3 Syrian workers, who allegedly had carried out welding at the Port’s Warehouse 12 on the day of the explosion.
With that, all suspects identified by the investigation into the explosion are now in custody, a judicial source told AFP.
Although the direct cause of the explosion has yet to be determined by the probe, it has been suggested that the welding work could have started the fire that eventually led to the enormous explosion.
However, this story has been widely criticized and viewed as a “cop-out” answer by the authorities, which the Lebanese people have majorly blamed for the disaster, citing years of corruption and mismanagement on the politicians’ part.
