Referring the Beirut Port explosion file to the Attorney General

Judicial investigator Tariq Al-Bitar concluded his investigation into the case of the open Beirut port explosion about six years ago, in which the prosecution included about seventy people, including politicians and security leaders, according to what a judicial source told Agence France-Presse on Monday. Since 2023, the investigation into the Beirut port explosion, which led to the death of more than 220 people on August 4, 2020, has been immersed in the mazes of politics in Lebanon, after Hezbollah led a campaign to demand the resignation of Al-Bitar, who was later surrounded by dozens of lawsuits to stop his involvement in the file. But since the beginning of 2025, he has resumed his work in light of the changing balance of power at home.

Since then, several legal obstacles that hindered Al-Bitar’s work have been overcome, including the lifting of a travel ban issued against him.
A judicial source told Agence France-Presse that “the judicial investigator in the Beirut port explosion case, Judge Tariq Al-Bitar, decided to conclude his investigations into the case and referred the entire file to the Cassation Public Prosecutor, Judge Jamal Al-Hajjar,” noting that the number of defendants in the case reached about 70 people, including politicians, security and military leaders, and employees.

He explained that the cassation prosecutor will study the file and “submit his review basically,” and then refer the file again to the investigating judge, “who will issue his indictment decision and determine responsibility for each of the defendants.”
According to the judicial source, Al-Bitar is supposed to “take a decision regarding about 20 defendants who have appeared before him since the beginning of 2025 and he did not take measures regarding them at the time, and decide to arrest them or leave them free or with residency bonds.”
As for the other fifty, the investigating judge had already taken decisions against them regarding their arrest or release with a residence permit, and among them were politicians and judges who refused to appear before him for investigation, according to the source.
There are no people currently detained in Lebanon in the port explosion case.
Since the disaster occurred, the Lebanese authorities have attributed the explosion to the storage of huge quantities of ammonium nitrate inside the port without preventive measures following the outbreak of a fire whose causes were unknown. It later became clear that officials at several levels were aware of the dangers of storing the substance and did nothing.