Judge Ghada Aoun during a search of the premises of the Mecattaf company, in 2021. (Credit: Marc Fayad)
BEIRUT — After an urgent matters judge decided to lift the red wax seals from the doors of money transfer company Mecattaf, prosecuted in August 2021 by Mount Lebanon Public Prosecutor Ghada Aoun on suspicion of money laundering, Aoun again ordered the company to be sealed. This decision was described as “illegal” by the company's lawyer.
Here’s what we know:
• Believing that these seals “infringe on the company's rights to carry out its commercial activities,” Metn’s urgent matters judge, Ralph Karkaby, ordered the “immediate” lifting of seals from the company's doors on Tuesday, after the publication of a judicial decision by the Financial Attorney General not to rule on this case citing the absence of a criminal offence.
• Judge Ghada Aoun, according to local media reports, ordered Mecattaf to be sealed again on Tuesday evening. Her decision was executed, and red wax was affixed to the company's door.
• “We did not expect what happened, and it is against the law,” the company's lawyer, Marc Habka, told local television station MTV. “The most surprising thing about all this is the silence of the attorney general at the Court of Cassation and the Justice Minister. Judge Aoun made this decision without having jurisdiction,” added Habka.
• In August 2021, Mount Lebanon Public Prosecutor Ghada Aoun initiated a series of lawsuits against the company and its now-deceased owner Michel Mecattaf, along with several people and companies whom she suspected of being involved in money laundering operations through the Mecattaf company.
• In April 2021, Aoun ordered that the company be closed and sealed with red wax before she forcibly entered Mecattaf’s offices in Awkar to raid them, disregarding the Supreme Judicial Council’s call for her to abide by a senior public prosecutor’s order dismissing her from financial crime cases. She left with files and computers loaded into her private car.
• Following the raid, Aoun was called to appear before the Judicial Inspection Authority at the request of the Supreme Judicial Council.
• On March 18, Mecattaf died at the age of 52 from a heart attack. The case against his company is still ongoing.