Beirut courthouse. (Credit: Claude Assaf)
Beirut’s first investigative judge of Beirut Bilal Halawi is expected to summon attorney Marwan Issa al-Khoury on Tuesday to testify as a witness. Khoury is the nephew of former central bank governor Riad Salameh, who is suspected of “embezzlement, theft of public funds and forgery” and has been detained since Sept. 3.
Khoury was initially scheduled to testify on Thursday, Sept. 12, but due to travel, he was unable to appear before Judge Halawi. On that same day, the judge questioned attorney Micky Tueni as a witness and set another hearing for Thursday, Sept. 19, to confront him with Salameh.
Khoury’s testimony was postponed to this Tuesday. Having returned to Lebanon, he is expected to appear, according to a source who spoke to L’Orient-Le Jour.
Khoury is expected to be questioned about bank transfers allegedly made to his account from Tueni’s account. Tueni is said to have previously received the same funds from a “consultation” account at Banque du Liban (BDL).
Last Thursday, on the same day as his colleague’s questioning, Khoury released a statement saying that he had not received any financial transfers to his bank accounts “of any nature, originating from BDL ... except for minor professional fees due for two cases.”
Ghada Aoun steps in
Meanwhile, Mount Lebanon’s chief prosecutor, Judge Ghada Aoun, is expected to summon Tueni to testify as a witness on Tuesday.
Since last June, Judge Aoun has been barred from summoning individuals through the Judicial Police, following an order from acting Chief Prosecutor Jamal Hajjar, who prohibited the police from following her instructions. Judge Hajjar also requested that Aoun hand over all the financial cases she holds, though she has complied with only one.
Following the arrest warrant issued by Halawi against Salameh on Sept. 9, Judge Aoun visited Hajjar’s office to request permission to interrogate Salameh. Her request was denied.
However, on Thursday, Aoun managed to question Tueni at around 4 p.m., after he voluntarily appeared following his interrogation by Halawi.
On the same day, Tueni was also questioned by Maya Zeghrini, the commissioner of the Beirut Courthouse on behalf of the government, following a request for authorization to prosecute sent by the Financial Prosecutor’s Office to the Beirut Bar Association. Tueni reportedly promised to present documents to Judge Aoun on Tuesday to dispel any suspicions against him.
L’Orient-Le Jour was unable to confirm whether and under what circumstances Judge Aoun plans to question Khoury.
It also remains unclear whether the hearing scheduled last Thursday for two BDL employees has been postponed to Tuesday or Thursday.
This article was originally published in L'Orient-Le Jour and translated by Sahar Ghoussoub.
