Beirut
- The political and judicial confrontation reached a new height in Lebanon, with the "State Security" raiding the location of the Governor of the Banque du Liban, Riad Salameh, without being able to bring him, knowing that he has a security team affiliated with the Internal Security Forces charged with protecting him as governor of the Central Bank.
The prosecution comes with a signal from the Public Prosecutor in Mount Lebanon, Judge Ghada Aoun, after Salameh failed to attend 3 hearings before her, in the context of complaints filed against him by activists on charges of illegal enrichment, money laundering, waste of public money, and perpetration of fraud.
Aoun continued her judicial moves yesterday, Wednesday, by accusing the Director General of the Internal Security Forces, Major General Imad Othman, on charges of obstructing the implementation of a judicial warrant and breaching his job. A date was set for his interrogation next week through a correspondence with the Ministry of Interior.
The Internal Security Forces denied preventing State Security members from executing a warrant for Salameh.
There were many accounts about the circumstances of Salameh’s prosecution and the aggravation of the political debate by accusing the Future Movement (headed by Saad Hariri) President Michel Aoun of being behind the decision to prosecute Salama, and denounced the prosecution against Major General Othman, considering that the judge achieved the goals of the “Free Patriotic Movement” (headed by Gibran Bassil), over The doors of the parliamentary elections, while the Presidency of the Republic denied accusations of standing behind the judge's moves.
Which is better, for the state security apparatus to arrest the governor of the Banque du Liban and place the institution under judicial guard, or to put in place a program that preserves the rights of depositors in partnership with the International Monetary Fund to stop the collapse. On the other hand, why the sudden objection to US aid to the Lebanese army, as if the matter was secret #Lebanon com/OEye8HktyS
— Walid Joumblatt (@walidjoumblatt) February 16, 2022
What is the story of Ghada Aoun with Salama?
In the general context, Ghada Aoun is described as a "rebel" and a unique case in the judicial body, and her opponents accuse her of being a judicial spearhead with files that serve the political battles of President Aoun's team and his son-in-law Basil.
Last year, she accused Ali Salameh and SGBL Chairman Antoine Sehnaoui of money smuggling, manipulation of the dollar exchange rate, and striking the national currency.
In April 2021, the legal confrontation erupted when the discriminatory Public Prosecutor, Judge Ghassan Oweidat (who enjoys the support of Hariri), issued a decision to stop Judge Aoun from her work. .
Later, she did not respond to her request to appear before the Supreme Judicial Council, thus reinforcing the rift and division within the judicial body itself.
As for Riad Salameh, the noose intensified against him, and for more than a year, he has been facing lawsuits filed by associations before European courts in Switzerland, France and Luxembourg. his brother and help him.
Judge Ghada Aoun was investigating money transfers abroad before the decision to stop her (communication sites)
What happened now?
On February 1, the judge issued a subpoena against Salama after he refrained from attending the hearing as a witness and not as a defendant for the third time, and last month he submitted a lawsuit requesting the judge's response to stop her from pursuing him.
Here, the journalist following up on judicial affairs, Youssef Diab, explains to Al Jazeera Net the path of the recent prosecution:
Aoun moved against Salama based on a lawsuit filed by the "The People Want Reform of the System" group.
Salameh submitted a response request, as she was pursuing him discretionarily and politically without legal documents. She refused to receive the request so as not to take her hand off the file.
In the second session scheduled to hear Salameh, Aoun issued a decision banning him from traveling by land, sea and air.
In the third session - which he also did not attend - Aoun placed a sign prohibiting Salameh from disposing of his real estate and cars, then the interviewer came to inform her of the "request for response" submitted by Salama, and she expelled him.
Diab confirms that Salama is not hiding, "and was in his house during the attempt to raid it, and moved to his office in the Central Bank with the support of the security forces as usual."
Did Aoun bypass the law by pursuing safety?
The former Public Prosecutor of Cassation in Lebanon, Hatem Madi, points out that the judge acts according to what the law allows, "as long as she did not notify the request for a response against her," and that the judge summoned Salama several times to be heard, but he failed, so she had options, including:
Bring him by force of law and by the security services.
Issuing a report and investigation memorandum and transferring it to the investigating judge.
Aoun went for the first option, and announced that it had extended indefinitely the effects of the warrant to prosecute him until its implementation.
And Madi - in his speech to Al Jazeera Net - considers that Salama has many legal defense options through his lawyer, but he must appear before the judiciary because his immunity as a senior employee of the first degree is not absolute.
#Joseph_Abu_Fadil: If the ruler, #Riyad_Salameh, was a Shiite, a Sunni, or a Druze, would Judge #Ghada_Aoun have dared to think of listening to him, or ordering the state security apparatus (which we appreciate) to bring him!!
Or is it because it is a Christian-Maronite, and we can do what we like with Christians?!
The fault of #Riyad_Salameh is that he is not a Muslim but a Maronite-Christian!
pic.twitter.com/Eadk0kc1z5
— Joseph Abu Fadel (@AbuAbufadel) February 15, 2022
Is it time to lift the cover for safety in search of an alternative?
Salameh has held his position since 1993, and came with the support of the late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and he received Western and American support, and his renewal continued for many years, the last of which was the term of President Michel Aoun when he was renewed in 2017 for a period of 6 years.
The writer and political analyst, Asaad Bishara, says that the central governor is an essential part of the system, and Aoun's team is within it, and he was linked with it by a network of mutual and intersectional interests, and therefore "any fair trial must include all those who benefited and participated in its financial engineering, not just Salama."
In his interview with Al Jazeera Net, Bishara considers that President Aoun and his team members are behind the judge's moves against Salama, and then Major General Othman, "because they want to achieve a great popular goal before the end of the reign, and to appoint a new ruler who enjoys their political approval," and accuses the judge of being selective in her files, and "what It is just a process of settling political, security and judicial scores."
For his part, writer and political analyst Daoud Ramal notes several paradoxes in the prosecution of Salama. Previously, when a warrant was issued for his interrogation, the discriminatory prosecutor Ghassan Oweidat - from his highest position - obstructed the process of his prosecution.
What finally happened must be stopped by Ramal’s opinion, because the judge took 3 big steps: seizing money and property for safety, banning him from traveling, issuing a warrant to bring him and listen to him, and throughout January until today, “the Cassation Public Prosecutor has not exercised his legal right to freeze the effects of his procedures.
Ramal talks to Al Jazeera Net about a political indicator stating that safety is not overlooked in light of the evidence, facts and foreign and European correspondence, to prevent the Lebanese judiciary from being internationally suspicious if it continues to protect Salama.
He says that the size of the files against Salameh on the outside put pressure on the internal reality, and even on Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who was holding on to it, and squandered the ability to provide him with political and security cover.
The story is simple: #Ghada_Aoun issued a summons for the right #Riyad_Salameh #Tony_Saliba went to implement the warrant #Imad_Othman Waqf Boujen and what left them
When you talk about a security-media-political collusion, that's how it will be, and let's add to it
If there was a revolution and revolutionaries, Othman would not have dared to protect Salama
— George (@george_jbeily) February 15, 2022
According to Ramal, there has been a serious political discussion since the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron after the port explosion in August 2020, the essence of which is the search for an alternative to Salameh when the item on the economic and financial reform and recovery plan was presented.
Over the course of months, "several names were put forward internally and externally without agreement on them, and some personalities refused to take over the central governorship position due to the size and seriousness of the files," and what happened when trying to arrest Salama - in Ramal's opinion - made him automatically a fugitive from justice.
It reveals data about the urgency of the political forces at the present time to search for an alternative to Salama, and "to mingle the opinion of external forces with the names presented, because this sensitive financial site needs American and European approval, specifically French."
Ramal says that no one knows when the talks will mature, before or after the end of Aoun's reign, "but it is certain that Riad Salameh is losing his aura and his advantage as a difficult figure internally and externally."