Nine people affected by the horrific explosion in the port of Beirut have filed a lawsuit in the United States against a US company suspected of involvement in the tragedy, seeking a quarter of a billion dollars in damages, a Swiss organization supporting the plaintiffs said on Wednesday.
And nine U.S. prosecutors, including Sarah Copeland, who lost her two-year-old son Isaac, one of the youngest victims of the August 4, 2020 bombing that killed more than 200 people, injured more than 6,500 and caused widespread destruction in several areas of the capital. According to the authorities, the explosion occurred due to the storage of a large amount of ammonium nitrate in the port without any protective measures. Later it turned out that officials at several levels, political, law enforcement and judicial, were aware of the danger of storing materials and did nothing. Accountability Now, a Swiss organization working to support Lebanese civil society to end the culture of impunity for officials, announced a complaint had been filed earlier this week in Texas against Norwegian-American geophysical services group TGS.
The group owns the seismic company Spectrum Geo and a decade ago chartered the Rossos, which was carrying a cargo of ammonium nitrate before being unloaded in the port of Beirut and was behind the world’s third-largest non-nuclear explosion. According to the organization, Spectrum “entered into a series of highly lucrative but suspicious contracts with the Lebanese Ministry of Energy” to transport equipment used in seismic surveys, which is believed to be heading to Jordan via Rosso.
Former Minister Gebran Yasel, President Michel Aoun’s son-in-law, was the energy minister at the time. But his lawyer denied any relationship with her in a statement at the time. He said that the role of the ministry “was limited to only sending letters to the Customs Department to facilitate and expedite the temporary import of this equipment, as the assets suggest, without any role for him in the departure of the equipment, the time of its export.” , or how it is delivered.” And Spektr chartered the Rossos ship, which sailed under the flag of Moldova without leaving Lebanon. The Lebanese judiciary’s investigation into the port bombing has been hampered from day one. It has been in place for months as a result of lawsuits filed by defendants in political office. The plaintiffs are represented by American law firm Ford O’Brien Landy. Lawyer Zina Vakim of Accounting Now said the US-Norwegian company’s response should be known “in the coming months.” “This trial is the first of its kind and is a way to get around the hurdles that the Lebanese investigation has faced,” Wakim told AFP. And she believes that “the evidence that will be obtained from the trial can benefit the Lebanese investigation,” stressing that “the spirit of the lawsuit is to benefit all victims.”
