Double trouble: Lebanon’s Salameh gets second arrest warrant from Germany
Riad Salameh is under increased scrutiny in Europe on suspicions of money laundering at a time Lebanon is grappling with a deteriorating financial and economic crisis.
BEIRUT — As Lebanon struggles to overcome a suffocating economic crisis, the domestic and international judicial actions against the country’s central bank governor Riad Salameh are proceeding at full throttle with a second arrest warrant from Germany.
Reuters reported on Thursday that Germany’s public prosecutor has verbally informed the Lebanese judiciary of an arrest warrant against Riad Salameh, who is being probed both at home and abroad over a series of financial crimes.
A senior judicial source told the news agency that the charges against Salameh include corruption, forgery, money laundering and embezzlement.
Berlin's move comes a week after France issued a similar arrest warrant against the embattled governor, after he failed to show up at a hearing in Paris, where French prosecutors were planning to present fraud and money laundering charges against him.
