The former BDL governor, Riad Salameh. (Archive photo taken from NNA)
BEIRUT — The Beirut Indictment Chamber issued a deferred arrest warrant against the former governor of Lebanon's central bank, Riad Salameh, as well as against two lawyers in the case of the bank's consultancy account.
A judicial source contact by L'Orient Today explained that the warrant can only be executed by the Beirut Criminal Court, to which the Indictments Chamber has passed the case, accusing Salameh of allegedly embezzling $44 million from the consulting account into private accounts.
Salameh, who is also under investigation by several European countries, is seen as one of the key figures behind Lebanon's economic collapse. In September, Salameh was released on a $14 million bail by the same Indictment Chamber, after being held in jail since a year prior.
The case in question, presided over by Kamal Nassar, Marie-Christine Eid and Roland Chartouni, concerns the alleged embezzlement of $44 million into private accounts.
BDL's consultancy account includes, among others, funds from commissions collected through transactions between BDL and a brokerage firm, Optimum Invest, from 2015 to 2018, for which both the company and Salameh denied any wrongdoing.
Some of these funds were allegedly transferred to private accounts through commercial banks.
The Beirut Indictment Chamber also ordered the arrest of two lawyers linked to the central bank, Micky Tueni and Marwan Issa al-Khoury, for their alleged involvement in the transfers from the consultancy account to private accounts. The chamber accused the three defendants primarily of illicit enrichment and referred them to the Beirut Criminal Court.
The chamber had, among other factors, taken into account article 108 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which stipulates that the duration of pre-trial detention for a crime cannot exceed six months, renewable only once by reasoned decision.
As for the two lawyers, they had been the subject of arrest warrants in absentia, issued in February 2025 by the former acting chief investigating judge of Beirut, Bilal Halaoui.
However, last May, the Indictment Chamber, then chaired by Nassib Elia, lifted the measure against Issa al-Khoury following an appeal lodged by the latter on the grounds of a procedural irregularity related to his lack of notification.
Khoury's lawyer, Youssef Lahoud, said that "the chamber's measure will only be applied in the event of non-appearance at criminal court hearings, or at the final hearing devoted to arguments, before the trial's end and the judgment is rendered," meaning that the defendants would remain free until the end of the trial.
Lahoud argued that the investigation showed his client "did not benefit from any amount," noting that "he was not ordered to pay any financial bail."
A source close to Micky Tueni presents the same arguments, emphasizing that Tueni carried out actions that fall "within his mission as a lawyer," recognized as such by the bar association, according to the same source.
The lawyers' case refers to article 220 of the Penal Code, which punishes "any person who assisted in the crime and without whom the crime could not have been committed."
According to the source close to Tueni, this charge means the chamber finds that the lawyers contributed to the alleged crime, without personally enriching themselves.
The Indictments Chamber has also requested "that the case documents and evidence be forwarded to the financial prosecutor’s office to investigate the means by which the relevant funds entered Lebanese banks without the directors of the concerned banks informing the Special Investigation Commission at the Bank of Lebanon of these transactions."
It also requested investigations "into the reasons why the Special Investigation Commission was not informed of the withdrawals, then deposits, made to Riad Salameh's account."
The bank has also requested an "investigation of the chairmen of the boards of directors and directors of the banks to which funds were transferred from the consulting account or from which they were withdrawn, whether by checks or transfers, to question them about these transactions."
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