Lebanese PM charged over Beirut blast

Prime Minister Hassan Diab and three former ministers, The judge investigating the Beirut port explosion has charged Lebanon’s caretaker with negligence over the blast that killed 200 people and devastated swathes of the capital.

Diab, whose cabinet resigned over the August blast after taking office in early 2020, said his conscience was clear and accused the judge of breaching the constitution.

Four months after one of the largest non-nuclear explosions on record, which injured thousands of people, victims are still awaiting the result of the investigation. Lebanese leaders had promised it would come within days.

The explosion added to the challenges facing Lebanon, where decades of waste and corruption have triggered the country’s worst ever financial crisis.

Lebanon’s sectarian leaders are still haggling over who will be in the new cabinet.

Judge Fadi Sawan called Diab and former finance minister Ali Hassan Khalil in for questioning next week, along with former public works ministers Ghazi Zeaiter and Youssef Finianos, state news agency NNA said on Thursday.

Divided opinion

Zeaiter, who said he would comment once he was officially informed, headed the public works ministry in 2014, soon after the Rhosus ship carrying tons of ammonium nitrate arrived at Beirut port.

The highly explosive chemicals were stored for years in poor conditions at the port, which lies in the heart of the capital.

There was no immediate comment from Finianos.

Khalil, a top aide to Lebanon’s influential Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, said he had no role in the case as former head of the finance ministry, which oversees customs.

He said on Twitter that he was surprised by the judge’s allegations which “violated the constitution and the law”.

Families of some of the victims say Judge Sawan told them he had sent Berri a memo calling for immunity to be lifted from several former ministers and premiers, but the speaker had not accepted his proposal.