Beirut port's crumbling silos, seen from the capital's waterfront on September 6, 2022, two years after the deadly explosion. (Credit: Matthieu Karam/OLJ)
BEIRUT — At the request of Beirut Bar Association's prosecution office, British authorities denied, for a fourth time, the voluntary liquidation of a UK-registered company over possible links to the 2020 Beirut port explosion.
The Beirut Bar Association's prosecution office, which defends the rights of many victims and their relatives in the investigation into the Beirut port explosion, has asked the UK corporate registry, London Companies House, to prevent the company Savaro Ltd., which is part of this registry, from voluntary liquidation as the company remains in the crosshairs of the British justice.
In effect, London Companies House has extended, more than a week ago, Savaro Ltd's voluntary liquidation a fourth time, for six months, until June 2023.
A Reuters investigation into the Beirut blast that killed over 200 people found that the huge shipment of ammonium nitrate fertilizer that exploded had been held in Beirut while en route to Mozambique. The Mozambican buyer, FEM, identified the company it bought it from as Savaro Ltd., which has been trying to obtain its removal from Companies House since 2021.
The prosecutor's office has been opposing this attempt ever since January 2021. The extension of the de-listing suspension thus allows the continuation of the civil liability action against the company, filed in 2021 by Beirut Bar's prosecution office, through the law firm "Dechert LLP," of which former minister Camille Abou Sleiman is a senior member.
The action is before the High Court of Justice in London, which, on June 16, 2022, ordered the accused company to reveal the identity of its ultimate economic beneficiaries (that is, its true owners). In this regard, Camille Abou Sleiman and Nasri Diab, another lawyer representing the relatives of the victims, hoped, through the statement, that "those responsible in this case will soon be identified."
The trial in London is proceeding at "an accelerated pace," the lawyers said, revealing that the last hearing took place last November. They added that the court has taken several decisions in favor of the victims, without specifying the decisions' nature.
L'Orient-Le jour tried to reach them without success.
Investigative journalist Firas Hatoum, who had initially struggled to locate Savaro Ltd's location, revealed in January 2021 that the company had ordered and paid for the shipment of ammonium nitrate that led to the explosion at Beirut port. Hatoum also revealed that the company's sales contract with a chemical manufacturing plant in Georgia indicated that its headquarters were in Cyprus.
The journalist eventually learned that Hesco Engineering and Construction, owned by George Haswani, a Syrian businessman close to the Assad regime, has an office at the same address as Savaro Ltd. Hatoum. It was then learned that Savaro Ltd was based in Britain and sought the identity of the company that shared this address, in order to identify the parties involved.
It later emerged that all of the companies in question are fictitious, except for IK Petroleum Industrial Company Limited. This concern is owned by Imad Khouri, another Syrian businessman close to Assad, and was founded less than a month before the issuance of the ammonium shipment's export note to Lebanon.
