Inside Beirut's Justice Palace. (Credit: Claude Assaf)
Beirut’s investigative judge Roula Sfeir issued an arrest warrant on Thursday against former Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh, after questioning him in connection with a complaint filed against him in June 2021 by Talal Abou Ghazaleh.
The latter is a businessman mainly focusing on intellectual property and information technology. According to reports in the local press, Abou Ghazaleh holds an account worth several million dollars at the Société Générale de Banque au Liban (SGBL).
This is the third arrest warrant issued against Salameh. The first was issued on Sept. 9 by acting Beirut First Investigative Judge Bilal Halawi in the Optimum Invest case, concerning the alleged embezzlement of around $44 million.
The second was issued on Oct. 31 by Mount Lebanon First Investigative Judge Nicolas Mansour over suspicions related to the acquisition and use of real estate in France, including premises rented by BDL on the Champs-Élysées to establish an emergency center.
“This is the first time the judiciary has responded to a private individual’s complaint against the former central bank governor by issuing an arrest warrant against him,” a lawyer who declined to be named told L’Orient-Le Jour.
Asked about the slow pace of the judicial process in this case, which dates back four years, the lawyer said that Salameh had initially raised procedural objections, challenging Abou Ghazaleh’s standing to file such a complaint. His objection was initially upheld by Judge Halawi, but was later rejected by the Court of Appeals and then by the Court of Cassation.
According to the lawyer, the case was then referred to Judge Roula Sfeir about “six or seven months ago,” after the Court of Cassation ruled that the complainant had standing to bring the case, specifying that such standing could be recognized even in the absence of clearly established harm, as the investigation is still ongoing.
‘Clear and manifest collusion with the banks’
In his complaint, Abou Ghazaleh accused Salameh of having issued “circulars aimed at changing the liberal economic system set out in the preamble of the Constitution … with the purpose of … concealing the bankruptcy state of the majority of banks in Lebanon.”
He thus referred to “a clear and manifest collusion with these banks to appropriate the deposits and depositors’ funds.”
Our newspaper learned that Abou Ghazaleh was represented at Thursday’s hearing by his lawyer Mazen Abou al-Hosn, while Salameh appeared accompanied by lawyer Wassim Ghawi.
Sources told our newspaper that Salameh plans to appeal the arrest warrant on Friday within the 24-hour deadline granted to him.
This article was translated from L'Orient-Le Jour by Joelle El Khoury.
