No matter what they were guilty of, it's the Lebanese government that confiscated 3000 tons of explosive material and stored it in conditions that lead to the explosion. It was their ammonium nitrate when it blew up and their responsibility.
All this "who owned that ship" stuff smells of finger pointing to hide the real guilty parties.
Blaming the company that owned the ship is does nothing but shift responsibility from those responsible for storing 2400 tons of explosives near a residential area. There will always be reasons why the government chooses to seize cargo, taking over 6 years to move dangerous cargo, and storing it in shoddy conditions, is on the government. Perhaps if this had happened shortly after seizing the cargo the company could be more accurately blamed.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/world/middleeast/beirut-e...
[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-the-beirut-explosion-sev...
There had been suggestions that it was meant for Beirut, to be used by Sunni militants or Hezbollah, and the final destination of Mozambique was a cover.
Mix that with HA and the real ship owner doing business with the same Tanzanian bank.. the whole thing becomes stinky.
Guess they don't get posted to HN, although I'm sure I've seen one or two linked even here.
>There had been suggestions that it was meant for Beirut, to be used by Sunni militants or Hezbollah, and the final destination of Mozambique was a cover.
Aha. So? Good job confiscating it then. Lousy (or criminal) job not getting rid of it after.
Besides, did those "suggestions" only surface after the explosion by any chance?
It would be great if the solution they implement is to fix the broken bureaucracy and prevent the trafficking of high explosives.
People with normal reading comprehension would never conclude that quote means "no one should".
We should not let the government succeed in shifting blame or allow other "exciting headlines" distract from holding government responsible.