BEIRUT — The French judiciary has approved requests from the Lebanese government to transfer the frozen assets of Lebanon’s embattled central bank governor to the Lebanese state, the media office of caretaker Justice Minister Henry Khoury said in a Tuesday statement.
The requests were submitted by French lawyers Emmanuel Daoud and Jean-Claude Bouvet representing the Lebanese government.
In March 2022, Europe's agency for criminal justice cooperation, known as Eurojust, announced the seizure of some 120 million euros ($127.78 million) of Lebanese assets linked to an investigation into money laundering in Lebanon. The properties and bank accounts of five people suspected of embezzling $330 million and 5 million euros ($5.44 million) between 2002 and 2021 were seized in France, Germany, Luxembourg, Monaco and Belgium. Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh is a suspect in the case.
Legal proceedings against Salameh were opened in Europe in 2021. In May, France issued an international arrest warrant for Salameh 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. Germany followed suit a week later.
