Three years ago this month, the Netherlands-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon convicted Hezbollah member Salim Ayyash in absentia for the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. Ayyash, a senior official in the Iran-backed terrorist organization’s Unit 121 assassination squad, still has not been apprehended and is currently believed to be in Lebanon under the protection of Hezbollah. It’s unlikely he will ever face justice.

An even more memorable anniversary is that of the August 2020 explosion in the port of Beirut, which killed over 200 people, injured more than 6,000, and displaced some 300,000. Here, too, no headway has been made on the investigation into who was responsible for the blast, which occurred when nearly 3,000 metric tons of improperly stored ammonium nitrate detonated in the capital. In addition to various government officials, Hezbollah has also been implicated in the disaster. Not only did the organization control the port, but it is widely suspected of having diverted some of the ammonium nitrate to the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad to fuel the barrel bombs deployed against its own citizens during Syria’s civil war. Par for Lebanon’s course, legal proceedings are stalled.

Taken together, the anniversaries of the fruitless conviction of a political assassin and a catastrophic explosion with a murky genesis highlight Lebanon’s continued culture of impunity, including the country’s role as a sanctuary for prominent and not-so-prominent criminals and suspects wanted abroad. This is part of a long-established problem to which the Lebanese government actively contributes. Three years into a deep economic crisis, Lebanon is a failing state that depends on international support. That support is now threatened by Beirut’s contempt for accountability.

Treatment of suspects and convicted criminals who flee from abroad to Lebanon is a particular problem. Lebanese law prohibits the extradition of its nationals, yet there have been extraditions in the past. In 2019, Beirut rendered to the United States a dual Lebanese American citizen accused of abducting his 4-year-old son. While the country seldom extradites its alleged felons, Lebanon could prosecute and convict these individuals at home if a foreign country requests it and provides the case files. This rarely occurs, however, and the lackadaisical approach to lawbreakers has essentially established Lebanon as a premier sanctuary state.

The latest embarrassment concerns Rami Adwan, the Lebanese ambassador to France accused in June of raping two female employees of his embassy. After investigating these and other claims of abuse, Paris requested that Beirut lift the diplomat’s immunity to allow his prosecution to proceed in France. Instead of compelling the ambassador to face the allegations, however, the Lebanese foreign ministry recalled him to Beirut, thereby protecting the envoy from prosecution.

Like Adwan, Riad Salameh, the longtime governor of Lebanon’s central bank, is also being shielded from legal jeopardy abroad. In May, both France and Germany issued international arrest warrants for Salameh on corruption charges. Salameh, who stepped down this week after serving for 30 years, stands accused of pilfering some $300 million from the central bank during his tenure, a term that culminated with Lebanon’s financial collapse. Given the perennial endemic and massive graft that has bankrupted the state, Salameh’s alleged crimes barely stand out. But for many in Lebanon and abroad, he has become a symbol of official misconduct.

The Lebanese judiciary ordered the confiscation of Salameh’s passport, ostensibly to prevent him from going on the lam. It’s more likely, however, that Beirut wants to prevent him from traveling abroad and testifying in Europe, perhaps turning state’s evidence and potentially implicating dozens of Lebanon’s top politicos and bankers. After serving in this key financial role for so long, Salameh knows where the Lebanese power elite’s bodies are buried. It’s difficult to imagine he will venture abroad again.

Perhaps the most famous recipient of safe haven in Lebanon is Carlos Ghosn, the erstwhile CEO of Renault and Nissan. The businessman, who holds Lebanese, Brazilian, and French citizenship, was arrested in Japan in 2018 for financial misconduct and misuse of corporate assets. While on bail in 2019, Ghosn was smuggled out of Japan in a large audio equipment box, eventually finding safe haven in Lebanon. Despite being wanted by Tokyo and Paris, the tycoon resides comfortably in Beirut with his wife and estimated $70 million fortune.

Lebanon’s lack of accountability isn’t restricted to foreign cases and extradition requests. Dozens of political assassinations in Lebanon—most believed to have been carried out by Hezbollah—remain domestically unprosecuted. The Hariri verdict was unusual in that a perpetrator was convicted at all, even if he continues to escape punishment. Most high-profile killings are not even investigated. In February 2021, for example, the prominent Hezbollah critic Lokman Slim was assassinated by a hit team in the Shiite militia’s heartland. No progress has been made on the case. More recently, in December 2022, an Irish United Nations peacekeeper in southern Lebanon was lynched by a group of self-identified Hezbollah members. Five individuals were charged in the attack, but only one has been taken into custody.

The reticence of successive governments in Beirut to hold Hezbollah accountable for its crimes is regrettable but understandable. Hezbollah is suspected of killing, in 2008 and 2012, two officers in the state’s Internal Security Forces investigating the militia’s role in the Hariri assassination. But Hezbollah’s penchant for dispatching its adversaries is no reason for Lebanon’s laxity with respect to other criminals.