Ship that delivered explosive material to Beirut port was never supposed to stop there, says captain

The chemicals that went up inflames in Beirut's deadliest peace-time explosion arrived in theLebanese capital seven years ago on a leaky Russian-leased cargo ship that, according to its captain, should never have stoppedthere.

"They were being greedy," said Boris Prokoshev, who was captain of the Rhosus in 2013 when, he says, the owner told him tomake an unscheduled stop in Lebanon to pick up extra cargo.

Prokoshev said the ship was carrying 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a highly combustible chemical compound, from Georgia to Mozambique when theorder came to divert to Beirut on its way through theMediterranean.

The crew were asked to load some heavy road equipment andtake it to Jordan's Port of Aqaba before resuming their journey to Africa, where the ammonium nitrate was to be delivered toan explosives manufacturer.

But the ship never left Beirut, the crew having tried andfailed to safely load the additional cargo and the owners getting embroiled in a lengthy legal dispute over port fees.

"It was impossible," said Prokoshev, 70, of theoperation to try and load the extra cargo, speaking by phone from his homein the Russian resort town of Sochi on the Black Sea coast.

"It could have ruinedthe whole ship, and I said no."

The retired sea captain said he was baffled earlier this week when he awoke to find an email from a journalist asking him about the Rhosus.

"I didn't understand anything," he told The Associated Press."I opened my inbox and saw a letter about the Rhosus. I thought maybe they were sending me money, my salary."

Crew spent 11 months on ship in Beirut port

In 2013, after it became clear the additional cargo could not be accommodated, Lebanese authoritiesimpounded the vessel for failing to pay port fees.Prokoshev and lawyers acting for some creditors accusedthe ship's owner of abandoning the vessel without paying his outstanding debts to the port or thecrew.

Nearly a year later, once the crew had disembarked, theammonium nitrate was unloaded and put in a dock warehouse for safety reasons.

On Tuesday, that stockpile caught fire and exploded not farfrom a built-up residential area of the city. The huge blast killed more than 145 people, injured 5,000, flattened buildings and mademore than a quarter of a million people homeless.

The ship might have succeeded in leaving Beiruthad itmanaged to load the additional cargo.

The crew had stacked the equipment, including excavators androad-rollers, on top of the doors to the cargo hold, where the ammonium nitrate was housed, according to the ship's Ukrainianboatswain, Boris Musinchak. But the hold doors buckled.

"The ship was old, and the cover of the hold bent," Musinchaksaid by phone. "We decided not to take risks."

Immigration restrictions forced the captain and three crew members to remain onboard whilethe legal dispute dragged on for 11 months, without wages and with onlylimited supplies of food.

At some point, Prokoshev said, hesold some of the ship's fuel and used the cash to hire lawyers, who got the crew released on compassionate grounds in 2014.

The lawyers' application to the court emphasized "the imminent danger the crew was facing given the 'dangerous'nature of the cargo," the lawyers wrote in a 2015 article published byshiparrested.com, a website providing information on ship arrests and releases.

Once the crewleft, the ammonium nitratewas unloaded.

"The cargo was highly explosive. That's why it was kept onboard when we were there ... that ammonium nitrate had a veryhigh concentration," Prokoshev said.

Bound for Mozambique

Prokoshev identified the ship's owner as Russian businessmanIgor Grechushkin. Attempts to contact Grechushkin wereunsuccessful.

Cypriot police questioned Grechushkin at his home in Cypruson Thursday, a security source said. A Cyprus police spokesmansaid an individual, whom he did not name, had been questioned atthe request of Interpol Beirut in relation to the cargo.

The ammonium nitrate was sold by Georgian fertilizer makerRustavi Azot LLC and was to be delivered to a Mozambiqueexplosives maker Fabrica de Explosivos.

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Chris Hunter says the huge quantity of ammonium nitrate should have been immediately moved out of the busy port after it arrived.

A senior representative for Fabrica de Explosivos did notimmediately respond when sent a request for comment on LinkedIn.

Levan Burdiladze, the Rustavi Azot plant director, toldReuters that his company had only operated the chemical factoryfor the last three years and so he could not confirm whether theammonium nitrate was produced there.

He called the decision to store the material in Beirut porta "gross violation of safe storage measures, considering thatammonium nitrate loses its useful properties in six months."

Initial Lebanese investigations into what happened havepointed to inaction and negligence in the handling of thepotentially dangerous chemical.

Lebanon's cabinet on Wednesday agreed to place all Beirutport officials who have overseen storage and security since 2014under house arrest, ministerial sources said.

The head of Beirut port and the head of customs said thatseveral letters were sent to the judiciary asking for thematerial be removed, but no action was taken.

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The damage at Beirut's port, where the blast occurred, shows the full power of the explosion.

Reuters could not immediately reach Lebanon's justiceminister for comment. The Justice Ministry is closed for threedays of national mourning.

According to Prokoshev, the ship had been leaking but wasseaworthy when it sailed into Beirut in September 2013. However,he said Lebanese authorities paid little attention to theammonium nitrate, which had been stacked in the hull in largesacks.

"I feel sorry for the people [killed or injured in theblast].But local authorities, the Lebanese, should be punished.They did not care about the cargo at all," he said.

According to Prokoshev, he received an email in May 2018 from a lawyer telling him the ship sank "recently."

Prokoshev said the ship had a hole in the hull, and the crew, while on it, had to regularly pump water out to keep it afloat.

An analysis of a satelliteimage from February 2018 commissioned from space technology company Maxar by the New York Times showed the sunken ship a few hundred metres from the warehouse where its cargo was stored. The times reported that the ship sank between Feb. 16 and 18, 2018.

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A desperate search for survivors is underway after the deadly blast at the port in Beirut, which left the city devastated. Several port officials have been placed under house arrest and Lebanons president is promising a transparent investigation into the explosion.