BEIRUT: The lead investigator into the August blast at Beirut’s port that killed and wounded many people issued two arrest warrants Thursday for the captain and owner of a ship that carried thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate to Beirut seven years ago, the state-run National News Agency said.
Nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrates stored at Beirut’s port exploded on Aug. 4, killing 193, wounding about 6,500 and causing damage worth billions of dollars.
The news agency said judge Fadi Sawwan referred the case to the state prosecution that asked Interpol to detain the two Russian citizens.
NNA did not give the names of the two men but Boris Prokoshev was the captain who sailed the MV Rhosus from Turkey to Beirut in 2013. Igor Grechushkin, a Russian businessman residing in the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, bought the cargo ship in 2012 from Cypriot businessman Charalambos Manoli. Grechushkin has been questioned by police on request of Interpol’s Lebanon office in August.
More than two dozen people, most of them port and customs officials, have been detained since the blast which is considered to be one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded.
The Rhosus set out from the Georgian Black Sea port of Batumi carrying 2,755.5 tons of ammonium nitrate destined for an explosives company in Mozambique. It made an unscheduled detour, stopping in Beirut on Nov. 19, 2013.
In October 2014, the ammonium nitrate was moved into the port’s Warehouse 12, which holds impounded materials. The ammonium nitrate remained at the warehouse until it exploded while the Rhosus never left the port and sank there in February 2018, according to Lebanese official documents.
Lebanon asks Interpol to detain 2 Russians over port blast
https://arab.news/w5kd3
Lebanon asks Interpol to detain 2 Russians over port blast
UK sanctions RSF commanders over links to mass killings in Sudan
- The government also pledged a further £21 million to provide food, shelter, health services, and protection for women and children
LONDON: Britain sanctioned senior commanders of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on Friday, over what it said were their links to mass killings, systematic sexual violence and deliberate attacks on civilians in the African country.
Abdul Rahim Hamdan Dagalo, the RSF Deputy Leader and brother of RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, as well as three other commanders that are suspected of involvement in these crimes, now face asset freezes and travel bans, the British government said.
“The atrocities taking place in Sudan are so horrific they scar the conscience of the world,” foreign minister Yvette Cooper said in the statement. “Today’s sanctions against RSF commanders strike directly at those with blood on their hands.”
The government also pledged a further £21 million to provide food, shelter, health services, and protection for women and children in some of the hardest-to-reach areas, the statement said.
Millions of people have been displaced by the war, which erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the RSF.
