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Beirut – The current Lebanese Prime Minister, Hasan Diab, Recently charged with the big blast in Beirut on August 4, said on Tuesday that according to a report by the Federal Research Office (FBI) that day “only” exploded 500 tons of ammonium nitrate and not nearly 3,000 as was believed until now.
“The FBI report revealed that the amount it exploded was only 500 tons, so where did the other 2,200 tons go?” The acting leader was asked during a closed meeting. with the press, according to a transcript sent by his press office.
Nearly three weeks after being charged, along with three former ministers with negligence, by the judge investigating the tragedy that left more than 200 dead and 6,500 injured, Diab gave a convoluted version of the information he received before the explosion on the dangerous material stored in the port of Beirut.
To this version he added the figure of 500 tons of a report not yet made public by the US FBI, which joined the investigation by invitation from Lebanon.
Since the explosion, it had been claimed that the explosion was caused by nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate.
Diab claimed that on June 3, two months before the explosion, he received information from security forces indicating that there were “2,000 kilos of TNT in the port,” a warning that changed substantially in the next two hours.
The 2,000 kilos became “2,500 tons” and the “TNT” became “nitrate”, a fertilizer of which “we knew nothing,” said the president in justifying why he did not go to the port precinct how much he received the news of the presence of the material that would end up causing the tragedy.
Finally, according to his account, the version changed again to determine that the product had been in port for seven years, so the Prime Minister decided that the competent authorities would first complete the investigation and then send him a report, which happen on July 22nd.
“If I had had the feeling that there was a danger around the issue of the port, I would have spoken immediately with the President of the Republic (Michel Aoun) and would not have covered this crime that occurred in 2013,” he said. concluded the Prime Minister, who resigned shortly after the tragedy and refused to cooperate with justice after being charged.
Aoun then acknowledged that he knew of the existence of a “large amount” of ammonium nitrate stored in the port for two weeks before the fire broke out in a warehouse on that site.
The blast also left some 300,000 people homeless and several neighborhoods razed.