Salameh attends hearing, Bekaa explosion kills 5, Ogero runs out of fuel: Everything you need to know to start your Thursday

Banque du Liban Governor Riad Salameh attended a hearing at the Beirut Justice Palace yesterday, while his brother and alleged co-conspirator in the defrauding of the central bank, Raja, skipped a hearing in Paris. On Tuesday, Lebanon received a second Interpol red notice targeting Salameh following a German arrest warrant issued for him last week. A judicial source following the case told L’Orient Today that Court of Cassation Attorney General Imad Kabalan asked the German judiciary to provide documents on their arrest warrant. Meanwhile, local media, citing Raja Salameh’s lawyer, said he missed the Paris hearing due to “health reasons.” France and Germany were among at least five European jurisdictions to seize hundreds of millions of euros’ worth of assets linked to the central bank chief. The confiscators suspect the assets were purchased through BDL commissions illegally paid to Forry Associates, a company listing Salameh’s brother Raja as an economic beneficiary.

An explosion in the village of Qousaya in the Bekaa killed five members of pro-Syrian Palestinian militant group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC). “An old rocket exploded in an arms depot on the base, and five fighters were killed,” a Lebanese security source said. An Israeli army spokeswoman told AFP that they were not involved, denying a claim by PFLP-GC spokesman Anwar Raja that Israel was to blame. Khalil Helou, a retired army officer, told L’Orient Today that it was unlikely that the blast was caused by an Israeli strike.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea reaffirmed that the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) would join his party and its allies in backing former Finance Minister and International Monetary Fund senior official Jihad Azour in the presidential election. Geagea’s statement follows the publication of comments by FPM head Gebran Bassil on Tuesday announcing his party’s agreement with others on an anonymous candidate to oppose Hezbollah and Amal favorite Sleiman Frangieh. FPM MP Salim Aoun told local television channel Al-Jadeed that his party would unanimously back Azour after an “agreement with the Lebanese Forces, the Kataeb and some independent MPs.” International actors have repeatedly called on Lebanon to end the monthslong presidential vacuum, which yesterday escalated to the threat of US sanctions on Lebanese officials.

Ogero Managing Director Imad Kreidieh said that fuel shortages will cause at least 30 of their stations to go offline by Sunday, while the telecom provider’s employees said they would follow up their one-day strike yesterday with a sit-in for today. The al-Minieh power station, located in Tripoli, has stopped operating due to a fuel shortage, Kreidieh added. Ogero “doesn’t have the money to refuel … It’s a matter of weeks, or even less, before all our servers shut down and the internet is completely cut off across the whole of Lebanon,” a senior source at Ogero told L’Orient Today. Ogero employees said they plan to protest deteriorating living conditions in front of the National Social Security building in Wata al-Msaitbeh in Beirut. Yesterday, Ogero employees held a one-day strike and said they would go on strike next Tuesday and Thursday. Last month, Ogero employees ended an open-ended strike a little over a week after it began, as technical failures and resulting telecom outages sparked fears that the sector would break down. Public employees across sectors regularly organize protests to decry the deterioration of their salaries. Public administration employees are currently holding a two-week strike to demand improved wages and transportation allowances.

Local media reported that MPs Ali Hassan Khalil and Michel Moawad had a “violent verbal altercation” during a Parliament joint committees session over a cabinet decision raising public employees’ compensation. According to local television channel Al-Jadeed and the state-run National News Agency, the altercation was about the constitutionality of decrees issued by the caretaker cabinet to raise public employees’ salaries, transportation allowances and pensions. Besides the decision itself, there is also controversy over the caretaker cabinet’s authority to send projects to Parliament amid the presidential vacuum. Deputy Prime Minister Elias Bou Saab said the controversy could be avoided by reintroducing versions of the recent decrees as draft laws to be passed by Parliament, which comes with its own caveat: a refusal by dozens of MPs to attend legislative sessions before a president is elected. The joint committees will reconvene with the same agenda next week, Bou Saab said, with the possible addition of draft laws related to public sector pay and transportation allowances.

In case you missed it, here’s our must-read story from yesterday: “What’s behind the controversy over disbursing financial aid in dollars?”

Compiled by Abbas Mahfouz