
The Attorney General at the Mount Lebanon Court of Appeal, Ghada Aoun, in front of the Beirut Palace of Justice, May 4, 2023. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine/L'Orient-Le Jour)
Interim Prosecutor General at the Court of Cassation, Jamal Hajjar, annulled on Tuesday legal actions initiated by the Mount Lebanon Prosecutor, Ghada Aoun, against the interim governor of the Banque du Liban (BDL), Wassim Manssouri.
Aoun accused Manssouri of failing to cooperate with her investigation into the fate of $111 million allegedly transferred from a BDL account to private accounts. The sum had been flagged in 2023 by a report from the auditing firm Alvarez & Marsal, which was unable to identify the beneficiaries.
The legal actions initiated by Aoun were based on the 2022 banking secrecy law, which requires administrations to provide information requested by the judiciary in cases of suspected money laundering, a source close to the Mount Lebanon Prosecutor’s Office told L’Orient-Le Jour.
The measure taken by Hajjar is part of an ongoing judicial standoff with Aoun that began last June when he demanded that she hand over all financial cases she was handling, including those concerning Salameh.
After she refused, Hajjar instructed all security services to cease complying with her orders, effectively sidelining her.
Since taking on cases linked to Salameh following the 2019 financial crisis, Aoun faced consistent opposition from her superiors.
In a statement released on Tuesday to announce the withdrawal of the legal actions, Hajjar explained that he had asked Mount Lebanon’s First Investigating Judge, Nicolas Mansour, to hand over the file concerning Manssouri, which Aoun had recently referred for a broader investigation.
“It became clear that the Mount Lebanon Prosecutor General, Ghada Aoun, had initiated legal actions against the interim BDL Governor, Wassim Manssouri, despite his compliance with the circular I issued on 6/6/2024, prohibiting ministries and official administrations from responding to requests made by the Mount Lebanon Prosecutor General,” Hajjar said.
A source close to the Court of Cassation told L’Orient-Le Jour that other legal actions initiated on Tuesday by Aoun were also withdrawn, as they were “part of the same case as that of Manssouri.”
These included actions against former governor Salameh, accused of money laundering in connection with the $111 million case. Salameh continues to deny any allegations of financial misconduct.
The withdrawals also involve three banks — Banque Misr Liban, Bank Audi and Al-Mawared — accused by Aoun of failing to cooperate in identifying the beneficiaries of a portion of the $111 million allegedly channeled through their institutions.
Due to the interconnected nature of the case, Hajjar also canceled a request from Judge Aoun to Mansour to seek authorization from the Beirut Bar Association to prosecute two lawyers who, according to Aoun, may have acted as intermediaries in transferring the $111 million to private accounts.
Aoun responded in a post on X, saying “While the election of President Joseph Aoun and the appointment of Judge Nawaf Salam as prime minister fill us with joy, let me draw your attention to something you may have overlooked: you don’t need a president or a prime minister.”
“You have an absolute ruler, the Prosecutor General at the Court of Cassation, who unlawfully gives orders to public administration officials and the BDL governor, halts investigations led by the examining judge and forbids the judicial police from communicating with the appellate prosecutor — all without anyone telling him it’s illegal,” the post read.
“I understand that such things happened under the previous term, but at the start of this new mandate… no, this cannot continue,” she added.
Aoun also expressed hope that “the disastrous past will finally be left behind… and that violations of the law to protect the system will disappear forever.”
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour and translated by Sahar Ghoussoub.