Salameh was absent Tuesday from an interrogation session in Paris to find out how he had accumulated large assets in Europe, according to his lawyer.
French investigators suspect Salameh of accumulating real estate and banking assets through a complex fraudulent financial scheme and of embezzling Lebanese public funds on a large scale during his three decades at the helm of Banque du Liban .
For his part, his lawyer, Pierre-Olivier Sur, told Agence France-Presse that his client’s absence on Tuesday was due to his failure to inform him of the obligation to appear before French justice in accordance with the regulation.
Lebanese authorities did not notify Salama of the summons, despite police attempting four times to deliver the notice to Salama at the Central Bank’s headquarters, according to the agency.
After Riad Salameh’s absence on Tuesday, the judge in charge of the case had the possibility of issuing a new summons, but decided to issue an international arrest warrant against him.
Salama, who has been under investigation in France since July 2021, rejects the charges against him.
Since the beginning of the year, judges from European countries have traveled to Lebanon three times to meet the Governor of the Central Bank and his relatives.
At least two people have been charged in connection with the case in France.
Later this month, the Paris Court of Appeal will review the legality of the European Union’s seizure of some of Salameh’s assets.
Salameh’s lawyer, Pierre-Olivier Sur, refused to issue the arrest warrant on Tuesday, saying: “Put simply, I consider this a pure abuse of power.”
The implications of the arrest warrant were not immediately clear, especially since Lebanon does not extradite its nationals. A Lebanese judicial source told AFP that “Lebanese law does not allow the extradition of ‘a citizen to another country’.
The source added: “When the international arrest warrant is received through the red notice, the Lebanese judiciary will ask the French side for the file containing the data and documents on which Judge Bouziri based her decision.”
He continued: “If this evidence turns out to be correct, then the Lebanese justice system will start prosecuting him in Lebanon, because he is the authority in such a case.
In March 2022, France, Germany and Luxembourg froze assets worth 120 million euros ($130 million) believed to belong to the governor of the Banque du Liban.
Riad Salameh has headed the Central Bank of Lebanon since 1993.
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