Ill-gotten gains of the Salameh family: hearing on French property seizures postponed to May 23

BEIRUT — The hearing before the Court of Appeal of Paris on the validity of seizures made on the European real estate and banking assets of the governor of the central bank of Lebanon, Riad Salameh, was postponed to May 23, AFP learned Tuesday from sources close to the case.

Salameh, 72, is suspected of having acquired these assets through a massive misappropriation of Lebanese public funds.

He was heard in Beirut in mid-March by several European judges, including the French investigating judge Aude Buresi. Salameh claimed innocence.

At the end of March 2022, France, Germany and Luxembourg announced the freezing of 120 million euros of Lebanese assets linked to Salameh, the man who has headed the BDL since 1993, as well as four other people.

His defense claims the restitution of more than a dozen different seizures, whose value is in the tens of millions of euros, made by France. Assets seized include apartments in Paris, the United Kingdom and Belgium.

The French judicial investigation was opened in July 2021, in parallel with other European and Lebanese investigations.

Investigative documents indicate the embezzlement scheme is linked to a company registered in the Virgin Islands, created in 2001 by the firm Mossack Fonseca, implicated in the "Panama Papers."

Forry Associates Ltd, whose economic beneficiary is Raja Salameh, the governor's brother, was authorized by the Banque du Liban, headed by Salameh, to trade Lebanese Treasury bills and Eurobonds in exchange for a commission.

This commission was then transferred to Swiss bank accounts belonging to Raja Salameh, who allegedly sent "more than $220 million to several personal accounts in Lebanon," including some belonging to Riad Salameh.

Salameh had told the Lebanese justice system in August 2021 that he had received money from his brother to pay off a $15 million debt dating back to the 1990s.

In France, he is not formally implicated at this stage.