4 Port Blast Detainees File Complaint to U.N. Arbitrary Detention Body

Beirut port blast detainees Shafik Merhi, Badri Daher, Hassan Koraytem and Hanna Fares on Friday filed a complaint to the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

The move coincides with the international Human Rights Day.

The complaint was filed through the lawyer Rachel Lindon, who is a criminal law expert and a member of the Paris, Madrid and ICC bar associations.

It says that the four detainees “are being detained by the Lebanese government in an arbitrary and illegal manner,” without being allowed to “defend themselves” nor to “effectively challenge the legality of the measures that have been taken against them.”

“This contradicts with the rules of justice,” the complaint says.

The four detainees “were first interrogated without the presence of their lawyers and they later appeared before a judge within unjustified timeframes. The detainees have also never been able to reach the file or the documents related to their detention,” the complaint explains.

It also criticizes “the interference of the political class with the aim of obstructing any possibility to try them in an independent and impartial manner in this case,” noting that the complaint is “not asking the U.N. to determine the responsibilities regarding this massive blast that targeted Beirut,” but is rather asking it to “reaffirm that governments cannot mend the wounds of a certain country through unrightfully imprisoning individuals deemed to be guilty only because of their jobs, while the political class is being spared of any responsibility.”

At least 216 people died in the explosion, caused by the detonation of hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse for years, apparently with the knowledge of senior politicians and security officials who did nothing about it. The explosion also injured 6,000 people and destroyed parts of the city.

More than a year after the government launched a judicial investigation, nearly everything else remains unknown -- from who ordered the shipment to why officials ignored repeated warnings of the danger.