ISF agents in front of the detention center at the Beirut Palace of Justice. (Credit: Hassan Ammar/AFP)
On Thursday, the Beirut indictment chamber lifted the arrest warrant that Beirut’s First Investigative Judge Bilal Halawi issued on Feb. 27 against lawyer Marwan Issa al-Khoury, who is implicated in the case involving $44 million in bank transfers from the central bank’s ‘consultations account’ to private accounts. The chamber has scheduled a hearing for June 17 to question Issa al-Khoury in the case.
His lawyer, Youssef Lahoud, had argued before the chamber that there was a procedural irregularity and requested that the court revoke the arrest warrant. He claimed that Issa al-Khoury had not been properly notified — neither at his residence nor at his office — as the addresses used were incorrect. The chamber, composed of its president, Nassib Elia, and judges Nadia Jadayel and Abir Safa, unanimously ruled in his favor.
The chamber also rejected a fifth request for release submitted on April 23 by former Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh, who has been in custody since September 2024.
The court also refused to lift the arrest warrant issued on Feb. 27 against lawyer Micky Tueni, also implicated in the same case. It based its decision on Article 110 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which states that if the public prosecutor refuses to withdraw an arrest warrant issued in absentia, the indictment chamber cannot cancel it. The public prosecutor had indeed rejected the request to withdraw the warrant against Tueni on April 23.
Clear response
The court also asked the Bar Association Council to communicate, within one week of notification, its response regarding the authorization requested by the public prosecution for financial crimes to prosecute the two lawyers for forgery and use of forged documents. Their immunities had been lifted in September over charges for alleged embezzlement pressed against them by the public prosecution’s office for financial crimes. The public prosecution later pursued them for forgery and use of forged documents without seeking a new authorization.
Following the appeals made by the two Bar Association members, the public prosecution requested new immunity waivers from the Bar in December. However, it did not provide the documents required by the Bar Council, which refrained from granting the requested authorizations, without, however, explicitly stating that it was refusing to do so.
In January, a month following the absence of a clear response, Judge Halawi considered himself authorized to proceed with his investigation.
In response to Lahoud’s appeal of this decision, the indictment chamber thus requested that the Bar Association make an explicit decision “by giving either a positive or negative response.”
This article was translated from L'Orient-Le Jour by Joelle El Khoury.
