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On Monday, the Lebanese judiciary released French-Lebanese Ziad Taqi al-Din, who was previously arrested on the basis of an international warrant issued by Interpol, according to Agence France-Presse. However, he will remain under investigation, and he has been prohibited from leaving Lebanese soil, since his passports were confiscated pending receipt of his file from Paris, to consider whether the crimes he is accused of require a prosecution and trial before justice Lebanese or not. It should be noted that “Lebanon does not hand over its citizens.”
On Monday, the French News Agency quoted a judicial source in Beirut that the Lebanese judiciary released the businessman Ziad Taqi al-Din (70 years, days after his arrest, according to an international arrest warrant issued against him by Interpol.
The Lebanese judicial source said today: “The Cassation Prosecutor, Judge Ghassan Oweidat, decided to leave Ziad Taqi al-Din after determining his place of residence, confiscating his passports and preventing him from leaving Lebanese territory.”
He explained that Oweidat is sending a correspondence to the French authorities, requesting that the judicial file of Taqi al-Din be delivered to him, in order to review the content of the charges against him and take the legal requirement, and if the crimes that are They accuse him, they require a trial and trial before the Lebanese justice or not.
On Friday, a French judicial source suggested that the Interpol memorandum is not related to the issue of financing Sarkozy’s campaign, for which he was summoned to court last month as a regular suspect, but in the Karachi case, in who was tried in absentia, and the French judiciary issued an arrest warrant against him.
A French source had previously stated that the Lebanese authorities should inform the French Ministry of Justice of the implementation of the INTERPOL memorandum, provided the ministry reports to the Paris Attorney General’s Office. The latter must send documents supporting the extradition request of Taqi al-Din.
“Lebanon does not give up its citizens”
It should be noted that there is no extradition agreement between the two countries. The Lebanese judicial source said that “Lebanon does not hand over its citizens” and therefore the “proceedings” against Taqi al-Din “may stop at this point.”
Taqi al-Din fled to Beirut after being convicted in Paris in June for the financial aspect of the Karachi case, related to the sale of French arms to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The judiciary concluded that he had played the role of mediator and received huge “personal enrichment” commissions, and he was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison.
Taqi al-Din played a key role in the past in relations between France and the Muammar Gaddafi regime. He told French investigators since 2016 that he had given Sarkozy and his office director between late 2006 and early 2007 five million euros to finance Sarkozy’s presidential campaign. These statements made him a central witness in the case of Libyan financing for the campaign of the aforementioned French president.
However, last month he withdrew his accusations in an interview with the French weekly Paris Match and the BFMTV network.
France 24 / AFP
