BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon obtained a letter from Luxembourg authorities asking for information referring to Lebanon Central Bank Chief Riad Salameh’s bank accounts and property, a senior Lebanese judicial source confirmed to Reuters.
The source didn’t elaborate.
A spokesperson for Luxembourg’s judiciary confirmed to Reuters in November https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/luxembourg-judicial-authorities-open-criminal-case-related-lebanon-central-bank-2021-11-15 it had opened “a felony case” in relation to Salameh and his corporations and property, declining to supply additional information on the time.
A spokesperson for Luxembourg’s judiciary and Lebanon’s justice minister didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark on Friday.
When requested for remark, Salameh instructed Reuters the request for cooperation was a “regular process” not a “authorized go well with.”
“If that they had filed a authorized go well with they do not want assist in the investigation,” he stated.
Salameh denied studies that he had been charged by Luxembourg authorities, and stated each Switzerland and France had beforehand requested comparable cooperation from Lebanon.
A spokesperson for the French embassy in Lebanon didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The Swiss lawyer common’s workplace final yr stated it had requested authorized help from Lebanon within the context of a probe into “aggravated cash laundering” and attainable embezzlement of greater than $300 million below Salameh on the central bank.
France and Liechtenstein have additionally opened probes into alleged cash laundering in relation to Salameh.
(Reporting by Laila Bassam and Timour Azhari in Beirut; Writing by Timour Azhari; Editing by Jane Wardell and Matthew Lewis)
