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He said he transferred $ 240 million to fund a company he founded with his brother.
The letter from the Swiss Attorney General requesting legal assistance to Lebanon in relation to financial transfers estimated at 400 million dollars, made by the Governor of the Banque du Liban Riad Salameh and his assistant Marian Howeik and his brother Raja Salameh to Swiss banks, It caught the attention of the discriminatory attorney general of Judge Ghassan Oweidat, who met yesterday in the palace. For an hour, the justice took the governor of the central bank and informed him about the content of the correspondence of the Swiss attorney general.
The meeting, which lasted one hour, examined all aspects of this case and its legal effects. Al-Sharq al-Awsat learned from well-informed judicial sources that the prosecutor “informed Riad Salameh that the Swiss prosecutor’s office initiated a lawsuit against him in a money transfer case alleging that these transfers involve suspicion. Money laundering and embezzlement operations ”. He noted that Salameh “became familiar with the substance of the request by the Swiss judiciary to choose between moving to Switzerland and appearing before the prosecutor there, or being questioned by a judicial delegation within the Swiss embassy in Lebanon that specifically attends to this mission. And he pointed out that the governor of the Central Bank “explicitly stated that he will personally go to Switzerland to defend himself against the charges against him, and he has nothing to fear about it.”
The meeting between Oweidat and Salama was not limited to informing the latter of the content of the Swiss correspondence, but was asked about the truth about the transfers that the Swiss authorities speak of. Judicial sources revealed that Salameh “spoke extensively with Oweidat about the Truth of the transfers, and explained that the total money that surrounded him with his brother amounted to 240 million” dollars, not 400, as claimed by the Swiss authorities. He said: “These funds have been transferred over a period of 19 years, that is, since mid-2002, and not since the outbreak of the revolution (popular uprising) on October 17 (October) as suggested by the Swiss side, and these The transfers were intended to finance a company founded by Riad Salameh and his brother in Switzerland for 20 years “.
In the middle of last week, the Lebanese judiciary received a correspondence from the Swiss Attorney General’s Office, in which the latter requested legal assistance in the matter of a criminal investigation it was carrying out on financial transfers, which it said belonged to the State governor. Banque du Liban, Riad Salameh, his brother and his help, and the value of the transfer was estimated at 400 million dollars. “This request is part of an investigation carried out by the Attorney General’s Office on aggravated money laundering related to possible embezzlement that harms the Bank of Lebanon,” the Attorney General’s Office added in a statement.
And the day after meeting with the Governor of the Banque du Liban and hearing his position regarding the request from the Swiss authorities, the public prosecutor, Judge Ghassan Oweidat, must respond to the Swiss judicial reference to his letter, and The sources that follow up on this file clarified that Aweidat “asked the Banque du Liban to deliver official documents that clearly show how the transfers happened, the value and the date of each transfer,” indicating that “the response to the request for Swiss legal assistance will be later obtained from the Judicial Power of these documents, and indicate if the transfers were made on sequential dates, in order for the pertinent decision to be made in this regard ”.
Leaving the Beirut Palace of Justice, the Governor of the Banque du Liban, Riad Salameh, issued a statement saying: “I met with the discriminatory prosecutor, President Ghassan Oweidat, and I provided him with all the answers to the questions that he brought so much the original as on behalf of the Swiss prosecutor, and I assured him that no transfers were made. It is obtained from the accounts of the Banque du Liban or their budgets. “Salameh added in his statement:” I assured President Oweidat that I am always ready to answer any questions. I also reserve the right to legal prosecution against all those who insist on spreading malicious rumors and insults affecting me personally, as well as damage. “Lebanon’s financial reputation.
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