Former banker Rana Koleilat, known for her involvement in the Al-Madina Bank scandal in the early 2000s. (Credit: X)
The lawyer for Jad Nehmeh, a money changer implicated in the Rana Koleilat case and arrested by the prosecutor’s office on suspicion of the sale of land through allegedly forged powers of attorney, published a statement Thursday asserting his client's innocence.
According to attorney Michel Helou, “there was no act of forgery in the sales supposedly carried out through forged documents.”
The case came to light a few months ago after the children of Jamil Ibrahim, a 91-year-old businessman living in Brazil, lodged a complaint with the Beirut Court of Appeal.
They accuse Koleilat, already implicated in the fraud scandal that led to the collapse of Al-Madina Bank in 2003 and now residing in Brazil, of heading a network that seized real estate owned by their father.
According to the prosecutor’s investigation, Koleilat allegedly convinced Ibrahim to sign powers of attorney for property sales, then passed them to accomplices in Lebanon. These accomplices allegedly manipulated some powers of attorney by crossing out official wording restricting transactions on the properties.
Questioned by the prosecutor, Nehmeh, along with three others — including Ibrahim’s secretary and Koleilat’s nephew — are currently under arrest. Since December, their case has been overseen by Beirut’s first investigative judge, Rula Osman.
In his statement, Nehmeh's lawyer specified that “the alleged forgery consists of the addition of a note to two duly drafted powers of attorney at a notary in Lebanon, with this addition made by Jamil Ibrahim himself.”
He added that “this note in no way alters the essence of the authorizations and gives my client no additional rights, except the possibility to lift a sale restriction that Jamil Ibrahim himself had put in place to prevent his children from disposing of his properties.”
Attorney Helou also denounced the accusations from Ibrahim’s children, who claim their father was “kidnapped in Brazil,” while he said they never went to the country to check on him. He emphasized that Ibrahim “is in contact with many people in Lebanon,” and that the properties in question were acquired legally.
