The Palais de Justice in Beirut. (Credit: Claude Assaf)
On Tuesday, Lead investigating judge Bilal Halawi held a hearing related to the Forry Associates case, which involves $330 million in alleged commissions earned between 2002 and 2015 by the brokerage firm registered in the British Virgin Islands on the sale of Banque du Liban (BDL) financial securities.
According to sources, the hearing focused on procedural issues. Halawi requested written proof from Salameh’s lawyers that their client had dropped appeals he filed in August 2023 against several chambers of the Beirut Court of Appeals and judges tasked with handling certain matters related to his case.
Without these documents, a judicial source told L’Orient-Le Jour, the investigation cannot proceed.
Salameh reportedly filed withdrawal requests last summer with the registry of the plenary session of the Court of Cassation, which was meant to decide on the appeals.
However, the court has been unable to convene since January 2022 ever since the retirement of several of its members has led to a loss of quorum. These vacancies have not been filled yet due to political disagreements, leaving the court unable to rule on Salameh’s withdrawal requests.
Halawi reportedly requested that Salameh (or his lawyers) submit formal waivers filed with the registry of the plenary session of the Court of Cassation, according to a judicial source who spoke to L’Orient-Le Jour.
He also demanded a written commitment from Salameh, ensuring that the former governor would not, in the future, contest before a reconstituted plenary assembly (once it regains its quorum) the legal validity of decisions issued by the relevant chambers. This is intended to prevent the annulment of the procedural records of the investigation.
Next hearing set for Dec. 12
The next hearing, slated for Dec. 12, will focus on the submission of the requested documents.
Salameh’s legal actions were specifically directed against the senior president of the Beirut Court of Appeals, Habib Rizkallah, and the interim senior president, Ayman Oueidat.
Rizkallah had appointed Oueidat, who subsequently faced similar legal challenges. Both were successively tasked with appointing a new indictment chamber after the previous one had been notified of an appeal.
Among the judicial bodies involved were the one presided over by Maher Cheaito and others led by interim judges Mireille Mallak and Zalfa al-Hassan.
The respective bodies were responsible for reviewing a request to annul the decision made by Halawi’s predecessor, Charbel Abu Samra, which had been filed by the head of the Justice Ministry’s Cases Authority, Helene Iskandar.
After questioning Salameh in August 2023, Abu Samra implicitly decided to let him remain free without setting a new hearing date. Faced with the deadlock in the indictment chambers, Iskandar subsequently withdrew her request, demanding that the case be referred to Halawi. Ultimately, the indictment chamber presided over by Nassib Elia, who was not the subject of a state liability law case, granted her request last October.
The Court of Cassation presided over by Souheir Harakek confirmed this decision on Nov 6.
It should be noted that Iskandar attended Tuesday’s hearing in her capacity as a civil party, representing the State’s interests in the case.
The ‘consultancy’ case
Regarding the case of the ‘consultancy account,’ also overseen by Halawi, no date has yet been set for the next hearing.
The case revolves around the transfer of approximately $44 million from the BDL ‘consultancy’ account to a private account, from which Salameh is alleged to have personally benefited.
The case remains at a procedural stage, as Halawi still awaits a ruling from the Beirut Appeals Chamber, presided over by Elia, on two appeals filed by members of the Beirut Bar Association implicated in the matter. These individuals are challenging Halawi’s Nov. 19 decision to dismiss the procedural objections they had previously filed, including those concerning the lifting of their immunity, which was decided in September by the Bar Association’s council.
The indictment chamber is also expected to rule on a separate appeal filed by the financial prosecutor’s office, contesting Halawi’s acceptance of a procedural objection based on the statute of limitations regarding a suspected forgery of private documents. Halawi ruled that the legal three-year statute of limitations for the alleged offense had already expired, as the contested actions date back to 2016.
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour and translated by Sahar Ghoussoub.
