Lebanon’s cabinet agreed Wednesday to place all Beirut port officials who have overseen storage and security from 2014 onwards on house arrest following the city’s massive explosion reportedly caused by confiscated explosive materials being stored at the port. It’s unclear how many officials this will affect.
Customs chief Badri Daher told reporters that his agency had asked for the explosive materials to be removed from the port, but “this did not happen and we leave it to the experts to determine the reasons.”
Diab told reporters that the ammonium nitrate had been in storage without “preventative measures” since it was confiscated from a Russian-owned cargo ship in 2014. Customs officials reportedly warned judges of the risk associated with storing the explosives in a hangar at the port on several occasions between 2014 and 2017.