Former Lebanon central bank governor Riad Salameh charged with embezzlement

Judge orders a four-day preventive detention

Riad Salameh the former governor of Lebanon's central bank faces several charges. Reuters

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Former Lebanese central bank governor Riad Salameh has been charged with financial crimes by a court in Beirut.

Mr Salameh is accused of theft of bank assets under article 638 of Lebanon’s penal code, a source in the country’s judiciary told The National.

“The public financial prosecutor, Judge Ali Ibrahim, pressed charges against the former governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon, Riad Salameh, for offences of embezzlement, theft of public funds, forgery and illicit enrichment,” Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported.

Mr Salameh was detained for four days on Tuesday after a court hearing on the alleged embezzlement of at least $42 million from the Banque Du Liban.

It comes after his arrest by Public Prosecutor judge Jamal Hajjar on Tuesday after a judicial hearing in Beirut concerning an investigation into a fraud scheme in which tens of millions of dollars in public funds were allegedly embezzled from Lebanon's central bank. The alleged scam is known as the Optimum case.

Mr Hajjar ordered a four-day preventive detention. Mr Salameh, once seen as the guardian of Lebanon's financial sector, is now an international fugitive with frozen assets worth millions of dollars, an Interpol notice against him and several judicial cases both domestically and internationally. He is also widely blamed for Lebanon's financial collapse.

The case is now in the hands of an investigating judge to confirm the facts, gather evidence and submit it to the chamber of indictment before Mr Salameh stands trial.

The arrangement between Optimum Invest SA and the Banque Du Liban (BDL) is alleged to have allowed massive losses at the bank to be concealed between 2015 and 2018. The Lebanese judiciary also suspects that some of the money shuffled between accounts at the BDL was actually embezzled.

The Associated Press reported that the Lebanese judiciary is looking into embezzlement of $42 million.

A forensic audit of the transactions between the BDL and Optimum, conducted by consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal, found that as much as $111 million may have been disbursed to undisclosed third parties.

It is unclear why the judiciary is investigating only part of the amount flagged by the audit.

This is a different case from the widely reported Forry Associates Ltd scandal, which involves another brokerage company under investigation domestically and internationally.

Optimum commissions are suspected to be a continuation of the Forry commission's scheme, another broker under investigation in Europe allegedly used by Mr Salameh to embezzle $330 million from the BDL between 2002 and 2015.

In Lebanon, the case has been stalled for years by political interventions despite the mounting international pressure.