270-page study puts the file in motion
More than six years after the explosion of the port of Beirut, the judicial inquiry is approaching a decisive step. The investigating judge at the Court of Justice, Tarek Bitar, has now received a study from the Public Prosecutor ‘ s Office on the case. The document is 270 pages long and was supervised by the Advocate General at the Mohammad Saab Court of Cassation. Its surrender to the judge brings the investigation closer to the adversarial decision that has been awaited for years, without implying that it can be published automatically. Bitar remains free to assess the content of the document, to complete certain investigations and to take the necessary measures before considering its investigation work completed.
This precision is essential to understand what is being done. The submission of the prosecution’s study is not a decision on responsibilities. Nor does it bind Tarek Bitar in its conclusions. The judge shall retain the power to assess the facts, evidence, legal qualifications and persons liable to be prosecuted. It may therefore retain certain elements, exclude others or consider that additional acts are indispensable. After years in which the investigation has been slowed down by appeals, jurisdictional challenges, refusal to appear and open confrontation within the judiciary, the question is no longer whether Bitar will be able to draft its decision. It must also determine in what procedural state it will leave each of the persons concerned when it concludes the investigation.
This is where the most delicate part of the file begins. Several people did not appear before the judge. Some refused to appear or challenged his authority through different procedures. Others had been detained before being released in the exceptional circumstances that had marked the confrontation between Bitar and the former Attorney General of the Court of Cassation, Ghassan Ouedat. Even before the case comes before the court to try the case, we must answer a very concrete question: what will Tarek Bitar do with all these outstanding situations?
Those who did not appear are the first lock
The case of persons who did not appear before Tarek Bitar is not a procedural detail. It can determine how the investigation will shift to the judgment phase. Two paths remain possible. The judge may decide to call further hearings and attempt to complete the interrogations before making the decision. It may also consider that the case contains sufficient elements to directly advance and settle, in its decision, the judicial status of those who have not appeared.
In this second hypothesis, the question of mandates becomes central. Bitar could take the measures it considers justified by the evidence gathered during the investigation. Arrest warrants could then be issued against certain persons if legal conditions were met. But their signature would only be the first step. A mandate has a concrete effect only if it is transmitted to the competent authorities and executed. The case would then leave the judge’s office to enter a new institutional chain involving the prosecution and the judicial police.
This stage will be one of the most important tests since the opening of the investigation. For several years, the debate focused on Tarek Bitar’s ability to continue his work despite appeals and challenges. The question could now become much simpler and more brutal: when a judge issues a decision against a person with political, administrative or security weight, is the state able to enforce it? A court that can write a decision but cannot execute it remains locked in its files.
The families of the victims insist precisely on this point. For them, the value of the next step will not be measured solely by the number of pages of the adversarial decision or the number of persons cited. It will measure the capacity of the judiciary to transform decisions into actions. After six years of procedural battles, execution becomes almost as important as the prosecution itself.
The file left by Ghassan Ouedat remains open
Another significant problem concerns persons who had been released by Ghassan Ouedat when he held the post of Attorney General at the Court of Cassation. This sequence was one of the most spectacular episodes of the judicial crisis surrounding the investigation. It had shown that the conflict was no longer limited to the relations between Tarek Bitar and the officials he wished to hear. He had reached the very top of the judicial hierarchy.
The fate of these people cannot remain indefinitely in a grey area. Tarek Bitar must now determine the consequences of the elements gathered since then. It may consider that their situation does not justify a new measure. It may also reach a different conclusion with regard to the whole file. This choice must be legally justified. It cannot be based solely on the will to reverse the decisions of Ghassan Ouedat or, conversely, on the desire to avoid a new institutional confrontation.
It is here that the future adversarial decision must demonstrate its strength. It will have to individualize responsibilities. Not all persons who had knowledge of the presence of hazardous materials in port necessarily had the same skills. Not all had the same decision-making power. Some could transmit information, others could order a measure, others could intervene materially. Criminal liability cannot therefore be inferred solely from the fact that a name appears in an administrative correspondence or that a person held a position at a given date.
The judge will have to determine what each person knew, when they knew, what powers they had, what measures they could legally take and what they did or failed to do. Only after this individualised reconstruction can criminal qualifications become meaningful.
Hangar 12 remains at the heart of the case
Despite years of political and judicial battle, fundamental issues remain surprisingly simple. How did hazardous materials arrive at the port of Beirut? Why were they unloaded? How did they end up in hangar number 12? Why did they stay there for years? Who knew they were here? Who knew their danger? Which authorities had received warnings? Who had the power to move, seize, re-export or neutralize these materials? Why has no measure prevented the disaster?
For Cécile Roukoz, a lawyer and sister of Joseph Roukoz, who died in the explosion, this is where the real stake lies. Families do not request a list of officials chosen according to their political affiliation. They expect a full judicial narrative based on evidence and reports gathered during the investigation. The decision must make it possible to understand the chain of events and the chain of responsibility.
This requirement is important because the port file has been surrounded, since the first day, by a considerable mass of assumptions, political narratives and contradictory accusations. Some were presented as certainties even before they were demonstrated. A serious judicial decision will have to do exactly the opposite. It will have to separate what is established from what remains hypothetical. It will have to explain why one element is considered evidence and why another does not permit liability.
The number of names will therefore not be a sufficient indicator of the quality of the decision. A spectacular but ill-substantiated accusation would weaken the procedure. Conversely, a decision that can show precisely how a person has been informed, what they could do and why their behaviour is legally relevant will give the future trial a much more difficult basis to challenge.
The origin of the materials, the other great enigma
The external route of hazardous materials is one of the most sensitive aspects. Cécile Roukoz points out that the part of the investigation concerning the manner in which the materials entered Lebanon and the entities that might be linked to them remains covered by the secrecy of the investigation. This means that the publicly available evidence does not yet determine what Tarek Bitar has actually established on this sequence.
However, this issue is fundamental. Understanding why the materials remained in Hangar 12 involves first understanding how they arrived. Their journey must be rebuilt, the documents accompanying their transport, the decisions leading to their unloading and the successive responsibilities once the cargo entered the port. Each stage may include its own actors and obligations.
The adversarial decision is therefore expected not only for what it will say to Lebanese officials who have become aware of the danger, but also for what it may reveal from the previous channel. If the investigation has identified persons or entities related to the arrival of materials, it will be necessary to understand what evidence is based on the identification. If it has not been possible to establish certain elements, this limit must also be clearly assumed.
For families, the judicial truth cannot begin when the materials are placed in hangar 12. It must go as far as the evidence permits. It is this global reconstruction that will give the decision its historical as well as judicial value.
An adversarial decision does not yet mean an immediate trial
One of the misunderstandings surrounding the case is that once the adversarial decision is rendered, the case will immediately come before the Council of Justice and the trial will begin. The procedural reality can be longer.
The status of persons who have not appeared must first be clarified. Any mandates should be transmitted. Their implementation may pose new challenges. The case of persons previously released must also be dealt with. It is only after these issues have been resolved that the case can move forward in better conditions towards the next phase.
The Council of Justice will then become the place where the responsibilities assumed during the investigation will have to be considered adversarially. The defendants will be able to defend themselves. The evidence will be discussed. The qualifications chosen may be confronted with the arguments of the different parties. The families of the victims will be able to follow a trial which, until now, has never really begun.
This distinction between investigation and judgement is essential. Tarek Bitar is not responsible for final convictions. Its role is to investigate, determine whether there are sufficient elements to accuse certain persons and to transmit the file in the required condition for trial. The Justice Council will then have to decide on their responsibility at the end of the trial.
This is also why the presumption of innocence remains applicable to all persons concerned. To be cited in an adversarial decision does not mean to be found guilty. But the opposite is also true: the political or institutional weight of a person cannot be sufficient to prevent his return to the court if the elements of the investigation justify this decision.
After the appeals, the risk of a new battle
The case could then enter into a form of conflict different from that of previous years. So far, one of the main means of blocking has been to challenge Tarek Bitar, its jurisdiction or the procedures it initiated. Once the decision is published, the centre of gravity could move.
The battle could focus on the legitimacy of the document, the criminal qualifications, the persons detained or dismissed and the conditions for the execution of the warrants. Every important name could become the starting point of a political confrontation. The risk would then be that the decision would be discussed mainly on the basis of the identity of the persons concerned rather than on the basis of the evidence presented.
This is precisely what families say they want to avoid. They do not request that any party, institution or community be designated as responsible. They want to know who did what. They want to understand how a dangerous cargo could have remained in the heart of the capital for years and how a succession of administrations and officials failed to remove the danger.
If the decision is able to answer these questions with documents, dates, acts and legal arguments, it will be able to more resist attempts to reduce it to a political battle. If, on the contrary, it leaves important areas without explanation, the challenges will be made even easier.
Families no longer want a decision
The number recalled in the file is that of233 deaths. Six years after the disaster, the duration of the investigation itself created a second expectation. The need to know the truth has been added to the question of whether the Lebanese State is still capable of judging a case involving potentially powerful persons.
The question of enforcement thus becomes almost existential for the judicial system. If Tarek Bitar issues warrants and these remain ineffective, the problem will no longer be that of the port investigation alone. It will concern the very authority of judicial decisions. Conversely, if the measures are applied according to the rules, regardless of the identity of the persons concerned, the case could mark a profound change after years of paralysis.
Cécile Roukoz sums up this requirement with a simple idea: the importance of the next step lies not only in the decisions to be taken, but in their implementation. This distinction probably sums up the current legal moment better than any other.
For six years, the port file was presented as a battle to allow the judge to investigate. This battle may not be fully over. But another is already beginning to emerge. It will focus on the capacity of the prosecutor to pass on decisions, the judicial police to execute them and all institutions to allow the procedure to reach the Council of Justice.
The adversarial decision will therefore be a major moment, but it will not succeed. She will say what Tarek Bitar believes she can demonstrate after years of education. The real shift will then take place, when these conclusions leave the 270 pages of the file and the offices of the Palais de Justice to meet the most concrete test: that of their application.
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