SANTIAGO – Police in the South American country said they arrested a Portuguese man who was wanted by Interpol in connection with an explosion at Beirut’s port that is said to be one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history.
The unidentified man travelled to Santiago on a flight from Spain, and was put on a plane back to the Spanish capital, cops said. The Portuguese national was stopped by agents of the Chilean investigation police.
Chilean law enforcers said the detained man was wanted for ‘smuggling combustible material into Lebanon that led to the explosion that killed at least 200 people and injured around 5,000 others.
Officials earlier revealed that the explosion occurred due to 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, used in fertilizers and bombs, which was stored for six years at the port after it was seized.
The August 2020 explosion was preceded by a huge inferno at the Port of Beirut, on the city’s northern Mediterranean coast that shortly devastated entire neighborhoods of the Lebanese capital.
For many, the blast was a dreadful reminder of the 1975-1990 civil war that tore the nation apart and destroyed swathes of Beirut, much of which had since been rebuilt.
