Samir Geagea at the LF “martyrs' mass” on Sept. 21, 2008, during which he acknowledged his mistakes and those of his militia during the war. (Credit: Ramzi Haidar/AFP)
In Lebanon, often dubbed a “penal paradise,” the arrest of a senior official like Riad Salameh is a rare occurrence. The former Banque du Liban (BDL) governor was detained this week in connection with the “Optimum Invest” case, in which he is accused of embezzling at least $40 million in public funds. This marks the first time Salameh, who stepped down as central bank chief in July 2023, could face time behind bars.
With financial prosecutor Ali Ibrahim pursuing charges of “embezzlement and theft of public funds, fraud and illicit enrichment,” L’Orient-Le Jour looks back at other notable cases of political figures in Lebanon who have been imprisoned since the end of the civil war.
The exception: Samir Geagea (1994-2005)
Samir Geagea in Ghodreiss, April 21, 1994. (Credit: L'Orient-Le Jour archives)
Among the many political assassinations in Lebanon’s history, the killing of former Prime Minister Rashid Karami, whose helicopter was rigged with explosives on June 1, 1987, stands out. More than a decade after the crime, in 1999, Lebanon’s court found members of the Lebanese Forces (LF), then dissolved, and their leader Samir Geagea, responsible. Geagea was imprisoned from 1994 to 2005.
Initially, Geagea was sentenced in 1995 for the murder of a Christian rival, Dany Chamoun, leader of the National Liberal Party. These were the only prison sentences ever handed down to a militia leader following the civil war, as a 1991 amnesty law allowed most wartime crimes to go unpunished. The verdicts against Geagea, handed down under Syrian occupation, were hotly contested by parts of the Lebanese public and human rights organizations.
Chaheh Barsoumian and the Oil Scandal (1999-2000)
Chaheh Barsoumian. (Credit: His X account)
Chaheh Barsoumian, former minister of industry and petroleum under several governments between 1992 and 1998, is one of the few ministers to have been jailed. Barsoumian was accused of corruption, favoritism and mismanagement of public funds related to oil contracts. In March 1999, the financial prosecutor convicted and imprisoned him, only to be released on bail 11 months later. He was exonerated by Parliament in 2005.
Michel Samaha and the Syrian explosives (2013-2016)
Pro-Syrian former Lebanese minister Michel Samaha. (Credit: AFP stock photo)
Michel Samaha, a former minister of information and tourism in several post-Taif governments, was arrested in August 2012 on charges of transporting explosives provided by Syrian intelligence. Initially sentenced to four and a half years by a military tribunal in 2013, Samaha was released in January 2016, only to be retried and sentenced to 13 years of hard labor for terrorism, along with losing his civil rights.
Samaha, a former advisor to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and once a senior figure in the Kataeb Party before aligning with the Baath Party, was caught in a sting operation, filmed as he discussed carrying out assassinations and bombings against Sunni figures in Lebanon. He was released on Aug. 2, 2022.
Badri Daher: From the Beirut port explosion to Captagon smuggling (2020-2023)
Badri Daher, former director of Lebanese customs, questioned by Beirut's first investigating judge, Bilal Halaoui. (Credit: L'Orient-Le Jour archives)
Badri Daher, the former director of Lebanese customs, is the highest-ranking official to have been jailed in connection with the Aug. 4, 2020, Beirut port explosion, during which he was still in office. Close to the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), Daher was imprisoned a few weeks after the disaster and released in January 2023 alongside 16 other detainees following an order from former chief prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat, even though Daher remains under investigation by Judge Tarek Bitar.
Daher was also implicated in another scandal involving a request to lift a travel ban on a Saudi prince caught smuggling Captagon out of Lebanon in November 2020. In October 2022, Daher was acquitted by the Beirut Court of Appeals. Since February, however, he has faced five arrest warrants after failing to appear in court over allegations of personal enrichment, neglect of duties and squandering public funds related to a customs auction.
Lower-ranking Officials
Director General of the Road Traffic Department, Hoda Salloum. (Credit: National News Agency)
In recent years, as part of an anti-corruption campaign, several lower-ranking officials have also been arrested. Among them was Hoda Salloum, director-general of the Traffic Department. She was jailed along with 70 other employees in November 2022 following an investigation into corruption at vehicle registration centers across Lebanon. The campaign also led to the indictment of several officials from the land registry offices in Baabda and Metn for amassing bribes from citizens.
Aurore Feghali, the former director-general of petroleum at the Energy and Water Ministry, was arrested in May 2020 and released two weeks later on bail. She was implicated in the “defective fuel” scandal, in which the state-run Electricite du Liban (EDL) accused the Algerian public company Sonatrach of supplying tainted fuel to Lebanese power plants. This led to the arrest of the company’s representative in Lebanon, Tarek Fawal, a month earlier.
This article was originally published in L'Orient-Le Jour and translated by Sahar Ghoussoub.
