The Rafiq Hariri verdict disappointed some across Lebanon – leaving little hope over the Beirut explosion probe

The anger at the authorities goes beyond court rulings and investigations, says Bel Trew, as the country’s citizens are left weathering multiple storms and exasperated by decades of mismanagement

Lebanon is back in a two-week punishing lockdown even though tens of thousands of people in Beirut have been left homeless by the blast (Getty)

The timing of the verdict felt like a cruel joke, several people have told me this week from the blasted remains of Beirut – which after the recent massive explosion, an unprecedented financial crisis, and now a new two-week coronavirus lockdown feels like a cursed city.

While rescue crews were still sweeping up the rubble, while families were presented with the pieces of their missing loved ones, while aid stations were distributing food and nappies to shell-shocked parents, over 3,000 km away in The Hague a special court on Tuesday ruled on a different downtown Beirut blast – the 2005 suicide bombing which killed former prime minister Rafiq Hariri and 21 others.

Fifteen years on, after millions of dollars have been poured into a high profile international investigation, many in the Lebanese capital city were looking at Tuesday’s verdict as a litmus test for the outcome of any future investigations into the 4 August explosion. This month’s blast, likely caused by thousands of tonnes of poorly-stored explosive material catching fire in a hangar in Beirut port, also destroyed swathes of the capital, killing nearly 200 people and injuring 6,000 more.

If the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) could deliver some sense of clarity and justice for Mr Hariri’s murder, then many people told me there may be hope for real answers in a Lebanese-led probe already under way into the explosion two weeks earlier, which was considerably larger but likely caused by negligence rather than terrorism.

On Tuesday, however, many said they were disappointed.

The STL found one person – Salim Ayyash, a member of Shia militant and political group Hezbollah – guilty of the assassination of Hariri who, the court said, in the months preceding the bombing was a supporter of reducing the influence of Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The same tribunal acquitted three other Hezbollah members and did not rule on a fourth, Hezbollah commander Mustafa Badreddine, as he was killed in Syria in 2016. The judges emphasised that they found no evidence of the involvement of Hezbollah leadership or direct evidence of the involvement of the Syrian state. Both have repeatedly denied involvement.

The convicted man Ayyash is still at large and unlikely to be handed over to the STL by Hezbollah and so serve any time.

“It was a joke, they convicted a single person for the massive explosion which killed Hariri and so many other people and offered no information about what actually happened,” says Zaher Eido, who father Walid Eido, an MP and close friend of Hariri, was assassinated alongside Zaher’s older brother Khaled, in a 2007 car bombing during the tumultuous aftermath of Hariri’s killing. Walid Eido was also a critic of Syria’s influence in Lebanon and member of the same political movement as Hariri’s son Saad.

“After all this time, nearly a billion dollars, and a huge international investigation and this is the results we get,” Zaher added.

“We are pretty sure, just as we will never get the truth about Hariri’s killing or my father’s, we will never get the whole truth about the explosion a few weeks ago.”

It’s a sentiment repeated by many people in Beirut. Sara, an activist who asked not to be named, broke down in tears when talking about the dire situation in the country.

In 2005 she narrowly escaped injury as her then office was destroyed by the bomb blast, which killed Hariri and injured many of her friends and colleagues who were passers-by.

Earlier this month her new office was once against destroyed and her home damaged by the explosion, which struck somewhat ironically, while she was protesting near the port against a worsening financial crisis and endemic corruption in Lebanon. In fact, she says, security forces were breaking up the rally when the pressure wave ripped through the area, injuring the protesters and the officers chasing them.

The STL verdict, which left so many questions unanswered, has dashed any hopes that future investigations will provide answers.

“If we can get to 15 years without knowing any truth, without getting any answers for those murders, we won’t get any answers for the 4 August explosion,” she said.

“You can tell by the way the Lebanese investigation is being conducted.”

So far everyone has appeared to have deflected blame.

At least 16 port officials have been arrested but no minister has been questioned.

This is despite the fact it emerged Lebanese president Michel Aoun and prime minister Hassan Diab both knew about the dangerous stockpile of explosives at Beirut port three weeks before the blast. The security forces had investigated the issue in December 2019 – port officials had written at least eight letters about the problem over the course of the last six years but still nothing was done. The public works minister also admitted to Al-Jazeera he had been told about the stockpile just ahead of the blast.

Last week families of those killed in the 4 August explosion and those who were injured formed an alliance which is urging the United Nations Security Council to intervene and launch its own probe into the blast. But calls for an international investigation had already been dismissed by President Aoun.

The anger at the authorities goes beyond court rulings and investigations.

Lebanon’s citizens are weathering multiple storms – including an unprecedented financial crisis – caused by decades of corruption and mismanagement.

The United Nations announced on Wednesday that over half the country is now trapped in poverty – double the percentage last year.

Around a quarter of the population is in extreme poverty – a threefold increase on the percentage in 2019. Those numbers are only going to get worse as the blast destroyed so many homes and businesses. According to Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights, Lebanon is “fast spiralling out of control”.

Piling on further pressure is the fact Lebanon is back in a two-week punishing lockdown even though tens of thousands of people in Beirut are homeless and so staying with friends, families, strangers or in makeshift shelters and hotels.

The move is necessary as Lebanon recorded its highest number of new daily infections on Friday, with 628 new cases and three deaths. The infection rate has soared by more than 180 per cent since the blast as hospitals were flooded with the casualties while several medical centres, including those treating Covid-19, were destroyed in the pressure wave. Lockdown and social distancing has not been possible with so many homeless and thousands of people descended on the capital to help with the clean-up operation.

“When does it become too much for us to cope?” one cafe owner, asked me, adding that he would likely have to close his business forever in the coming weeks.

“And then what, where do we go? How do we live?”