German investigators arrived in Beirut as part of an investigation into a corruption case where the main suspect was Riad Salameh, head of the Central Bank of Lebanon. This was announced by the Lebanese Minister of Justice, Henry Khoury, according to The National newspaper.
guiding him FANOfficials from , France and Luxembourg will fly to the Middle East province on January 16. Judicial representatives of these European countries will leave Lebanon on January 20.
“It is no secret that Lebanon has received judicial cooperation requests from Germany, France, Luxembourg and Switzerland in connection with suspected financial crimes,” Khoury said.
The arrival of inspectors from Europe provoked a new wave of criticism of the provisional government. Some Lebanese viewed this as a violation of the country’s sovereignty.
Henry Khoury assured that any international cooperation in the judiciary carried out in accordance with the laws of the country does not constitute an infringement of the sovereignty of the Lebanese judiciary.
European investigators will have to question more than a dozen people, including Raja Salame, brother of the Central Bank president, the heads of major commercial banks in Lebanon, and Central Bank supervisors. Riad Salameh himself denies the corruption allegations and emphasizes that the case against him was fabricated based on newspaper articles.
Last March, authorities in France, Germany and Luxembourg froze more than $130 million in assets belonging to Riad Salama and its partners. The five suspects are charged with embezzling $330m and 5m euros from the Central Bank through a company registered in the Virgin Islands with the help of Raju Salama.
Riad Salameh has been the chairman of the Central Bank of Lebanon since 1993. Many residents of the country accuse him of the deep economic crisis that the republic is in today. According to them, the policy of the Central Bank governor caused the public debt to rise and the Lebanese lira depreciated by more than 90 percent against the dollar.