If it turns out the nitrogen fertilizer was Hezbollah's, the guys whose pagers blew up a year ago should be rounded up and summarily executed.
From the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, September 18:
The arrest in Bulgaria of Igor Grechushkin — whose ship carried chemicals to Lebanon that exploded in 2020 — is viewed as a sign that a long stalled investigation might finally get results.
The investigation into the massive 2020 Beirut Port explosion is “moving forward seriously and quickly,” Lebanese Minister of Justice Adel Nassar said in an interview, after the inquiry stalled for years.
Nasser made the comments to OCCRP’s Lebanese media partner, Daraj, after news broke this week about the arrest of the man whose ship carried the volatile chemicals that caused the devastating explosion in 2020.
Igor Grechushkin was arrested in Bulgaria on September 5 after arriving on a flight from Cyprus, where he holds a passport, along with Russian citizenship.
Nasser said Lebanon will seek the extradition of Grechushkin, who leased the ship that brought nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate into Beirut Port, where it was offloaded and put into storage before exploding.
“A file is being prepared and we are expediting it. I’m following up closely; it’s a request for extradition, and I have also requested to meet with the Bulgarian ambassador,” he said.
“I’m handling the logistics to make the request proceed as quickly as possible. By next week, the extradition request should be with them,” Nasser added.
There has been heavy criticism for lack of progress in the investigation of the Beirut Port blast, one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosions in history. At least 218 people were killed and about 7,000 were injured, while the explosion leveled large swaths of the city.
The ammonium nitrate at the root of the blast arrived aboard the Moldovan-flagged ship Rhosus in 2013. It was impounded in a port warehouse, where repeated warnings about its unsafe storage were ignored for seven years. After years of delays, the investigation into the explosion has gained traction under a new government formed earlier this year....
....MUCH MORE
Previously:
"Beirut blast: Tracing the explosives that tore the capital apart"
Shipping: "CMA CGM Proposes $600M Plan to Rebuild Port of Beirut"
"Munich Re Among Insurers Facing ‘Major’ Beirut Blast Losses"
We'll have more on the actual explosion on Sunday, it was one of only a handful of such events in world history.
