BEIRUT: Lebanon’s financial prosecutor questioned a top central bank manager on Friday over the country’s financial crisis, including the free fall of the Lebanese currency, a judicial official said.
Mazen Hamdan, the head of cash operations at the bank, is the most senior official to be interrogated in an ongoing probe into possible financial wrongdoing. He was ordered to appear for questioning about what Lebanon’s official news agency called “the manipulation of the dollar exchange rate.”
The central bank denied charges of manipulation in a statement that detailed recent transactions with money traders.
The probe reflected a growing clash between the central bank and the government at a critical time, as Lebanon launches talks with the International Monetary Fund to negotiate a rescue plan amid an unprecedented economic and financial crisis. The talks come against the backdrop of a deepening liquidity crunch, negative economic growth, soaring inflation and a massive state debt.
The judicial official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation, said Hamdan has not yet been formally charged.
In a statement, the central bank said it was lifting banking secrecy rules to show transactions between the bank and private money traders, to respond to the prosecutor’s allegations. It said the transactions with private traders over one month were of a limited quantity and were no match to the fluctuations witnessed in the market. It added that no transactions with exchange bureaus occurred after May 5.
“There are no manipulations in the exchange market as a result of transactions with the central bank,” it said.
Meanwhile, the central bank’s staff union called for the release of Hamdan, denouncing a “continuous attack on the central bank” and saying Hamdan was only carrying out his administrative duties.
In recent days, authorities have cracked down on currency exchange bureaus as the Lebanese pound, pegged to the dollar for more than 20 years, lost 60% of its value in weeks. A number of money dealers and the head of their union were arrested and officials closed down some bureaus for operating without licenses. They accused others of violating orders from the central bank to trade at a new controlled rate.
The measures to contain the currency’s free fall, including a cap on external transfers and adjusted exchange rates for dollar withdrawals from banks and money transfer bureaus, have created chaos on the black market and sowed panic among the public.
The central bank said it will provide dollars to importers at the rate of 3,200 pounds to the dollar — more than double the official pegged rate — to control the price of food. The black market rate has reached over 4,200 pounds to the pound in recent days.
The interrogation of Hamdan comes amid an unprecedented public spat between the head of the government and the governor of the central bank. Prime Minister Hassan Diab has held the governor, Riad Salameh, responsible for the pound’s downward spiral. Salameh says he has been taking all necessary measures to contain the crisis and blames politicians for misspending bank finances to pay down massive state debt.
Lebanon central bank official probed over currency crash
https://arab.news/c5r64
Lebanon central bank official probed over currency crash
- Mazen Hamdan is the most senior official to be interrogated in an ongoing probe into possible financial wrongdoing
- The central bank denied charges of manipulation in a statement that detailed recent transactions with money traders
Thousands of Libyans gather for the funeral of Qaddafi’s son who was shot and killed this week
- As the funeral procession got underway and the crowds swelled, a small group of supporters took Seif Al-Islam’s coffin away and later performed the funeral prayers and buried him
- Authorities said an initial investigation found that he was shot to death but did not provide further details
BANI WALID, Libya: Thousands converged on Friday in northwestern Libya for the funeral of Seif Al-Islam Qaddafi, the son and one-time heir apparent of Libya’s late leader Muammar Qaddafi, who was killed earlier this week when four masked assailants stormed into his home and fatally shot him.
Mourners carried his coffin in the town of Bani Walid, 146 kilometers (91 miles) southeast of the capital, Tripoli, as well as large photographs of both Seif Al-Islam, who was known mostly by his first name, and his father.
The crowd also waved plain green flags, Libya’s official flag from 1977 to 2011 under Qaddafi, who ruled the country for more than 40 years before being toppled in a NATO-backed popular uprising in 2011. Qaddafi was killed later that year in his hometown of Sirte as fighting in Libya escalated into a full-blown civil war.
As the funeral procession got underway and the crowds swelled, a small group of supporters took Seif Al-Islam’s coffin away and later performed the funeral prayers and buried him.
Attackers at his home
Seif Al-Islam, 53, was killed on Tuesday inside his home in the town of Zintan, 136 kilometers (85 miles) southwest of the capital, Tripoli, according to Libyan’s chief prosecutor’s office.
Authorities said an initial investigation found that he was shot to death but did not provide further details. Seif Al-Islam’s political team later released a statement saying “four masked men” had stormed his house and killed him in a “cowardly and treacherous assassination,” after disabling security cameras.
Seif Al-Islam was captured by fighters in Zintan late in 2011 while trying to flee to neighboring Niger. The fighters released him in June 2017, after one of Libya’s rival governments granted him amnesty.
“The pain of loss weighs heavily on my heart, and it intensifies because I can’t bid him farewell from within my homeland — a pain that words can’t ease,” Seif Al-Islam’s brother Mohamed Qaddafi, who lives in exile outside Libya though his current whereabouts are unknown, wrote on Facebook on Friday.
“But my solace lies in the fact that the loyal sons of the nation are fulfilling their duty and will give him a farewell befitting his stature,” the brother wrote.
Since the uprising that toppled Qaddafi, Libya plunged into chaos during which the oil-rich North African country split, with rival administrations now in the east and west, backed by various armed groups and foreign governments.
Qaddafi’s heir-apparent
Seif Al-Islam was Qaddafi’s second-born son and was seen as the reformist face of the Qaddafi regime — someone with diplomatic outreach who had worked to improve Libya’s relations with Western countries up until the 2011 uprising.
The United Nations imposed sanctions on Seif Al-Islam that included a travel ban and an assets freeze for his inflammatory public statements encouraging violence against anti-Qaddafi protesters during the 2011 uprising. The International Criminal Court later charged him with crimes against humanity related to the 2011 uprising.
In July 2021, Seif Al-Islam told the New York Times that he’s considering returning to Libya’s political scene after a decade of absence during which he observed Middle East politics and reportedly reorganized his father’s political supporters.
He condemned the country’s new leaders. “There’s no life here. Go to the gas station — there’s no diesel,″ Seif Al-Islam told the Times.
In November 2021, he announced his candidacy in the country’s presidential election in a controversial move that was met with outcry from anti-Qaddafi political forces in western and eastern Libya.
The country’s High National Elections Committee disqualified him, but the election wasn’t held over disputes between rival administrations and armed groups.
