An officer stands guard outside the Palace of Justice in Beirut, 2023. (Credit: AFP)
While the first investigating judge of Beirut, Bilal Halawi, received the Riad Salameh file on Wednesday, L'Orient-Le Jour looks at the next stages of the procedure awaiting the former governor of the Central Bank (BDL).
After having questioned Salameh at length on Tuesday at the Justice Palace, the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation, Jamal Hajjar, ordered his arrest and provisional detention before transferring his case, the following day, to the Financial Attorney General Ali Ibrahim. The latter immediately initiated proceedings for "embezzlement and theft of public funds, forgery and illicit enrichment," asking Judge Halawi to investigate the case. If it was to the Financial Prosecutor's Office rather than to the Appeals Office (as was initially discussed) that Hajjar had transferred the case, it is because it contains "suspicions of usurpation of public funds," a source close to the Cassation Prosecutor's Office told L'Orient-Le Jour .
The cassation prosecutor rushed to send the file without fully using the legal period of four days available to him for pre-trial detention. A period that could have been extended until Saturday, or even next Monday, since weekend days are not taken into account, according to a lawyer interviewed by L'Orient-Le Jour.
Once Judge Halawi took charge of the case, he had to quickly begin his examination and set a hearing for the former BDL governor. This is scheduled for Monday at 10 a.m., according to an informed source.
At this first meeting, Salameh could either submit directly to questioning or use his legal right to present procedural objections to the judge. This could involve, for example, contesting the judge's jurisdiction to examine the case in question or asserting that the acts he is accused of are not punishable by law or that they have been examined or are being examined in parallel by another authority – which should not be the case here, since the so-called "Optimum Invest" case opened in Lebanon is distinct from the cases currently being handled by several European jurisdictions.
In an attempt to obstruct the investigations, the former governor can also invoke, according to Article 73 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, "the nullity of a measure taken during the investigation." In this case, the preliminary investigation was conducted by Judge Hajjar.
In response to one or more of the above-mentioned exceptions, the first investigating judge of Beirut will have to decide, within a week of their submission, whether to accept or reject them. He will have to have previously consulted the financial prosecutor's office, whose opinion will not be binding on him, however. It remains that the prosecutor's office, but also the former governor of the BDL, will be able to appeal Halawi's decision before the Beirut indictment chamber, depending on whether the latter has admitted or rejected the exceptions in question, Paul Morcos, director of the law firm Justicia, told L'Orient-Le Jour.
Incarceration or not?
"If the exceptions are subsequently validated by the appeals court and later by the Court of Cassation," Halawi will continue his investigation, during which he may either release the former governor or issue an arrest warrant against him.
In the first case, the first investigating judge may or may not accompany his decision of acquittal with a request for financial bail. As a reminder, Raja Salameh, brother of the former governor of the BDL, was released in May 2022 on bail of $3.7 million. He had been detained for nearly two months, from March 17, 2022, on the orders of the Mount Lebanon appeals prosecutor, Ghada Aoun, for a case of suspicious transfers of more than $330 million. These transfers were allegedly made within the framework of a brokerage contract on Eurobonds and Treasury bills signed between BDL and Forry Associates Ltd, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands in 2001, and of which Raja Salamé was the economic beneficiary. The decision to release is however likely to be the subject of an appeal brought by the financial prosecutor before the indictment chamber, Morcos also stated.
If an arrest warrant is issued, detention can legally last six months, renewable once, the lawyer added, since the embezzlement of which Salameh is accused constitutes a crime (for misdemeanors, the law provides for imprisonment of two months, renewable once). During his detention, Salameh is entitled to make a request for release and to renew it if it is not granted.
At the end of his investigations, the first investigating judge will have to issue an indictment in which he will decide whether to charge Salameh or to dismiss the case in his favor.
This article originally appeared in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.