The Justice Palace in Beirut. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — Head of the lawsuit department at the Justice Ministry Judge Helena Iskandar sent a letter to the finance minister requesting the assignment of a lawyer or a law firm to assist her before foreign courts that are probing the governor of Banque du Liban, Riad Salameh, and prevent foreign countries’ confiscation of his frozen funds, since they “legally belong to Lebanon,” the state-run National News Agency reported on Thursday.
Here’s what we know:
• The NNA reported Iskandar as saying that as soon as she received Public Prosecutor Ghassan Ouiedat’s letter informing her about efforts to freeze Salemeh’s funds in banks in Switzerland, France, Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg, as a result of a probes in these countries, she sent a letter to the finance minister requesting the assignment of a lawyer or a law firm to assist her before foreign courts, to prevent the confiscation of these frozen funds by the foreign countries because these funds belong legally to the Lebanese state.
• Five European countries, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Monaco and Belgium, on Monday froze 120 million euros in assets that German prosecutors said were tied to the Salameh probe.
• Iskandar added that she previously referred a proposal to the head of the Administration and Justice Committee, MP George Adwan (LF/Chouf), to amend the legal text to allow the head of the Committee of Cases to prosecute without the need for a license from any minister, but no law has been issued in this regard to date, bearing in mind that contracting a lawyer to assist the head of the Committee of Cases — as in the case of Iskandar’s request — can only be done through a contract from the justice minister issued by a decree from the cabinet.