A judicial source stated that the brother of Lebanon’s relevant bank governor posted bail of 100 billion Lebanese pounds ($3.7 million) and changed into freed on Thursday after two months of detention.
The bail parent is a document in Lebanon, a rustic grappling with an economic crisis visible as one of the world’s worst in contemporary records and extensively attributed to corruption and woeful governance by means of the ruling elite.
Brother of central bank chief Riad Salameh, Raja Salameh was arrested on March 17 by the order of judge Ghada Aoun on charges of “money laundering, embezzlement, illicit enrichment, and smuggling large amounts of money” out of Lebanon.
A court official told AFP Thursday that “Judge Nicolas Mansour approved Raja Salameh’s release on bail set at 100 billion Lebanese pounds and has decided to seize his 40 properties in Lebanon until the end of proceedings.
“His passport was also confiscated and he is banned from traveling,” the court official said with anonymity.
Raja Salameh denies the charges he faces.
His brother Riad is widely blamed for policies that led to the collapse of Lebanon’s currency, which has lost more than 90 percent of its value against the dollar since 2019.
Ghada Aoun also issued an arrest warrant earlier this year against Riad Salameh following a complaint by an activist group over financial misconduct.
Lebanon opened a probe into the central bank chief after a Swiss investigation identified an alleged payment by Lebanon’s central bank of more than $330 million in brokerage fees to a company whose beneficiary was purportedly Raja Salameh.
In March, the EU’s justice agency announced that France, Germany, and Luxembourg had seized properties and frozen assets worth 120 million euros ($125 million) in a significant operation linked to money laundering in Lebanon.
The seizures were connected to a probe launched by a French investigator’s final year into the private wealth of Riad Salameh.
Central bank governor in view that in 1993, Riad Salameh denies wrongdoing and has continuously accused Aoun of overseeing a politically-inspired probe.
