Caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab said, Tuesday, that the US FBI report estimated the amount of ammonium nitrate that exploded inside the Beirut port on August 4 at 500 tons.
The Lebanese authorities attributed the terrible explosion at the time, which killed more than two hundred people and injured more than 6,500, to a fire that broke out in a warehouse in which it was stored, according to what Diab announced at the time, an amount of 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate six years ago without protection measures.
Diab said in an interview with a number of journalists at the Prime Minister´s Office, according to a statement from his media office, that "the (FBI) report revealed that the quantity that exploded was only 500 tons," wondering: "Where did the remaining 2,200 tons go?"
A team from the "FBI" participated in the initial investigation, and the Lebanese side handed over a copy of its report. Agence France-Presse was not able to verify or view the contents of the report.
French investigators also participated in the evidence gathering process.
Lebanon refused to conduct an international investigation into the explosion, which severely damaged the main port in the country and several neighborhoods of the capital, displacing tens of thousands of families from their homes that were damaged or destroyed.
The authorities have been investigating the explosion since it happened, but the judicial investigator, Fadi Sawan, announced this month that the investigations would be suspended for ten days, after two former ministers who were accused in a memorandum requested that the case be transferred to another judge, according to a judicial source told AFP.
On December 10, Sawan had charged Diab and three former ministers, namely, the former finance minister, Ali Hassan Khalil, and the former labor ministers, Ghazi Zuaiter and Youssef Fenianos, but none of them appeared before him in the sessions that he identified for interrogation as "defendants."
The four persons are the first political officials accused by Sawan in the case in which at least 25 high-ranking persons responsible for the port´s administration and security were arrested.
Zuaiter and Hassan Khalil subsequently submitted a memorandum to the Court of Cassation, which has not yet decided on the request to transfer the case.
On the sixth of this month, Sawan pleaded with the management and investment of the port on charges of "negligence, negligence and causing the death" of people, according to a judicial source and Agence France-Presse.
The explosion sparked widespread anger among the Lebanese, especially after several reports and sources confirmed that the authorities, including former and current security services, presidents and officials, were aware of storing this material in the port and its dangers.
