BEIRUT: Lebanese safety forces on Tuesday raided the places of work and residential of Lebanon’s central financial institution governor, Riad Salameh, over hyperlinks to costs of illicit enrichment and cash laundering.
Mount Lebanon’s state prosecutor, Decide Ghada Aoun, who’s heading the case towards the banker, joined guards who entered the financial institution’s Hamra Avenue premises in Beirut hoping to arrest Salameh.
Nonetheless, the raid ended after Beirut public prosecution decide, Raja Hamouche, requested state safety brokers to clear the constructing.
Livid financial institution worker representatives later introduced a three-day strike in protest on the raid.
Aoun, who introduced the costs towards Salameh in March, mentioned: “We have been informed that the central financial institution’s governor was not there, and the court docket of cassation public prosecutor didn’t reply to us.”
The incident sparked criticism in some quarters, and one judicial supply mentioned: “Decide Aoun doesn’t have any energy in Beirut. She’s a decide in Mount Lebanon and he or she doesn’t have the fitting to cross her powers.”
On the similar time, safety forces additionally raided Salameh’s home within the Rabieh space of Mount Lebanon. The governor was not current at both premises.
The central financial institution governor’s financial coverage has been partly blamed for contributing to Lebanon’s financial meltdown and forex disaster.
Salameh has claimed that “the state borrowed cash from the central financial institution and promised to implement reforms however didn’t,” and he held politicians accountable “for what is going on.”
However he has failed to look for questioning earlier than Aoun on 5 events, contemplating the decide’s prosecution to be “a part of a scientific course of to distort” his picture.
An announcement launched on his behalf, mentioned: “A decide can’t be an enemy and a referee on the similar time. Political causes are behind the lawsuit filed towards him.”
Aoun has refused to be notified of a lawsuit filed by Salameh’s attorneys towards her at the start of the 12 months requesting her elimination from the case. She beforehand prosecuted him 5 instances and imposed a journey ban on him.
In March, she arrested his brother, Raja Salameh, for questioning over “suspicions of cash laundering, embezzlement, illicit enrichment, and smuggling of huge cash sums overseas.”
In the meantime, offended workers on the central financial institution condemned Tuesday’s raid.
Abbas Awada, head of the financial institution’s workers’ syndicate, mentioned: “The dignity of the financial institution and its workers is above something, and we refuse to be handled on this militia-like manner.”
And he introduced a three-day strike, “to let the rational folks intervene and shield the establishment.”
An workers’ syndicate assertion mentioned: “Decide Ghada Aoun and her safety personnel entered the financial institution … with out due strategy of legislation, which hit the dignity of the financial institution and its workers.”
The syndicate known as on Lebanon’s justice minister, president of the supreme judicial council, and state normal prosecutor, “to place an finish to those inappropriate actions of decide Ghada Aoun, which deviate from all authorized ideas … in order that we don’t announce an open strike.”
It additionally appealed for involved people to, “shield the establishment of the central financial institution and its workers, particularly that it’s the solely establishment working at full capability in Lebanon regardless of the tough circumstances.”
Awada added: “We aren’t defending governor Salameh, however the establishment as an entity. If there’s any clear establishment on this nation, it’s the central financial institution.”
Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati mentioned he regretted, “the way in which delicate judicial recordsdata associated to the nation’s financial stability are being handled, wreaking havoc.
“I mentioned it earlier than and I say it now, we’re not defending anybody, however we maintain on to a good, non-discretionary judiciary whereas guaranteeing Lebanon’s monetary fame internationally.
“What’s required is to unravel this case with a previous political settlement on a brand new central financial institution governor, and let the case take its acceptable authorized course afterward.”
Lebanese member of parliament, Marwan Hamadeh, described the raid as “folkloric and a show-off,” including that, “a state of madness is surrounding the president’s time period and his entourage, solely inflicting the nation devastation, destruction, and chapter.
“Isn’t it the present president who mentioned that ‘we’re going to hell’? That was the one fact he informed all through his time period.”
President Michel Aoun is in search of to nominate a brand new governor of the central financial institution earlier than the top of his time period in October, as a part of his ongoing demand for a felony investigation into its monetary operations.
