The chairman of the board of directors of Crédit National, Nader Hariri. (Credit: X account.)
Interim attorney general at the financial prosecutor's office, Dora el-Khazen, on Tuesday issued a travel ban on Crédit National (National Credit) board chairman Nader Hariri, a cousin of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, based on complaints of fraudulent bankruptcy, breach of trust, and misappropriation of funds.
The complaints were filed by clients of Crédit National. A similar measure was taken against the bank’s interim director, Rodolphe Atallah, who was appointed by the Banque du Liban. The information was confirmed to L’Orient Today by a high-ranking judicial source.
According to corroborating reports, both men were summoned Tuesday for an interrogation hearing, which they did not attend. Hariri reportedly claimed he had not been notified, while Haykal is said to have submitted a justification for his absence to the magistrate.
According to the website Lebanon Debate, Nader Hariri allegedly offered four investors (two businessmen and two companies) the sale of real estate he owns in the Bachoura district of Beirut, as part of a deal that would allow him to recover ownership a year and a half after the sale date (a sale with a buyback option).
However, about a year and two months after the transaction, Hariri reportedly requested the return of his properties for the benefit of Crédit National, intending that his institution resell them to the Banque du Liban (Central Bank,) with the proceeds from the sale to be deposited into the investors’ accounts at Crédit National.
Still according to Lebanon Debate, in the period between the sale of the properties to the bank and the deposit of the money into the four partners’ accounts, a new agreement was made at Hariri’s request, in which the partners agreed to keep the proceeds from the sale in their accounts at Crédit National. Under this transaction, Hariri personally committed to gradually repay the amounts according to terms the parties had agreed upon.
Hariri is said not to have honored the agreement, according to Lebanon Debate. He allegedly postponed payments several times, citing "exceptional circumstances."
Crédit National is then reported to have pressured the investors, through its legal counsel, to sign documents acknowledging that Hariri was the holder of the economic rights to the properties, on the grounds that they had transferred him their right to restitution. When the investors tried to withdraw their funds after Hariri failed to meet his obligations, the bank refused, first invoking a "liquidity crisis" and then claiming that Hariri did in fact hold the economic rights to said accounts.
