Firefighter Gives Testimony at Third STL Hearing Session, Says Crater Split Hariri Convoy in Half
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon resumed on Monday its hearing sessions in The Hague, as Khaled Toubaili, a firefighter that was involved in the rescuing operations on February 14, 2005, gave his testimony.
Toubaili, a firefighter at the Bashura sector in the Beirut Fire Department, recounted the events he experienced on the day of former premier Rafik Hariri's assassination.
"I was on duty with my colleagues on February 14 2005, and we heard an explosion. I didn't wait for anyone to notify me and without hesitation we rushed to the crime scene,” he said at the beginning of his testimony, noting that they had followed the smoke to locate the explosion site.
He explained that there are three sectors in the Beirut Fire Department.
“Each sector is in charge of a certain area and there is no overlapping between their work. The second sector, the Bashura (neighborhood) sector, takes charge of the area where the explosion took place. I was on duty there.”
“In addition to the fire trucks, the third vehicle accompanying us is always an ambulance. We do not go to any scene without an ambulance, in case there were wounded people or in case a firefighter was injured on duty.”
Toubaili elaborated on the road the firefighters took to reach the scene of the explosion.
“We reached the Riad Solh area and then we took a maritime road, arriving to the location of the Four Seasons Hotel,” he said.
He noted: “When we arrived, all we could see was shattered glass, everything was on the streets and the glass was first seen near the Riad Solh Square. And after reaching the Four seasons area, the trucks were not able to move towards the explosion scene because of the rubble and the destruction.”
“What I saw was not an ordinary view, we saw columns of fire and smoke everywhere.”
Toubaili said all he could do at the time was to ask for reinforcement by calling the operation room.
“I asked for sending all trucks available in the three sectors of the Beirut fire department,” he stated.
He detailed: “I divided the team into two groups. I sent one group to the St. George hotel, and the second to the Byblos building.”
He said he rushed to the Byblos building to extinguish the fire that had erupted there.
“When I saw the fire in the Byblos building I went personally inside the premises to rescue people who might have been trapped there. We extinguished the fire on the first floor and then headed to the second floor. On the first floor three rooms were torched but there were no employees trapped. On the second floor one room only was on fire and we transferred the wounded to the hospital.”
He said his team took charge of transferring several wounded to the American University of Beirut - Medical Center.
Toubaili revealed that at that time, he had no idea the blast had targeted Hariri.
“And therefore, throughout the rescuing operation, I was not aware of the reason of the explosion. But when I was inside the Byblos building, a firefighter came up to me and informed me about it,” he announced.
The firefighter said the vehicles that were burned in the area were not all part of Hariri's convoy, but many belonged to employees in neighboring companies.
But the cars that were completely burned were the ones that were part of the convoy, he added, pointing out that due to the explosion, the convoy was separated and divided into two parts, one in front of the crater, and one behind it.
“We could extinguish fire easily in people's vehicle but not in those of the convoy. The fuel tanks were exploding in our faces. We extinguished fire with water and every time we put off a blaze, it would ignite again. We used large quantities of foam to finally be able to extinguish the blaze.”
He mentioned that the Fire Department was not the party in charge of retrieving Hariri's body.
“It could have been the Red Cross or the Defense Forces that took charge of this mission,” he said.
During his testimony, Toubaili referred several times to the post-blast model at the court to detail on the road his forces took, and to the sites where he performed the rescuing operations.
The hearing session was adjourned to Tuesday at 11:30 am.
Source: Naharnet
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