“Sawt Beirut International” learned that the discriminatory attorney general, Judge Jean Tannous, quizzed this morning, the Governor of the Banque du Liban, Riad Salameh, and that the interrogation session lasted more than three hours. The questioning focused on suspicions related to crimes of “public funds’ embezzlement, forgery, the use of counterfeiting, money laundering and tax evasion, and illicit enrichment”. At the end of the session, it was decided to release him on remand, pending the completion of the interrogation on September 28.

Salameh did not attend with his lawyer, and he informed Judge Tannous that he wanted to be interrogated without the presence of his legal representative, who is committed to the strike of the Bar Association, and for  the President of the Beirut Bar Association Melhem Khalaf not to give an exceptional permission for the lawyers in this case. A judicial source revealed to “Sawt Beirut International” that the file is “huge and complexed, and requires several sessions.” Stressing that “the file on the basis of which Salameh is being questioned is separate from the external files, and it was established in accordance with the surrogacy sent by the Swiss judiciary. Based on the answers provided to the Swiss public prosecutor, the discriminatory public prosecutor in Lebanon prepared an integrated file.”

The judicial source said that “the prosecution of Riad Salameh is not related to his financial career, nor the monetary policy that he adopted  during three decades, nor to the collapse of the Lebanese pound, but rather related to specific acts and facts with a criminal description, and the investigation focuses on the availability of evidence and proof, and whether it will require his trial in later stage.”