BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Fransabank on Wednesday closed all of its branches in the country following a judicial order freezing its assets based on a lawsuit filed by a depositor, a Fransabank source told Reuters.
Lebanese banks have frozen most savers out of their hard currency deposits since a financial meltdown in 2019, but the controls were never formalized in law and have been challenged in courts.
The judicial order required Fransabank to reopen the account of Egyptian depositor Ayad Ibrahim and pay out his deposit in cash, or else the bank’s assets would be seized, his lawyer Rami Ollaik said.
The judge who issued the order and Ibrahim could not be reached for comment.
The Fransabank source said that following the order the bank would not be able to make any payments, including of salaries, because its assets have been frozen. The bank has roughly 50 branches, the source said.
“We closed because the order is on all the belongings of the bank, including the safes, at the tellers, where you can get the cash. I can’t get (cash), and I can’t receive,” the Fransabank source said.
Fransabank had issued Ibrahim a cheque for the value of his deposit and he was therefore no longer a client, the Fransabank source said, adding that he had signed for the cheque at a notary.
A spokesperson for United For Lebanon, an anti-corruption group that is representing Ibrahim in the case, said he had “signed for the cheque but with reservation.”
Lebanon’s Fransabank closes all branches after judicial order, source says
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Lebanon’s Fransabank closes all branches after judicial order, source says
- Lebanese banks have frozen most savers out of their hard currency deposits since a financial meltdown in 2019
- The judicial order required Fransabank to reopen the account of Egyptian depositor Ayad Ibrahim and pay out his deposit in cash
Soleimani warned Al-Assad about ‘spy’ Luna Al-Shibl: Al-Majalla
LONDON: The late Iranian General Qassem Soleimani confronted Syria’s National Security Bureau chief Ali Mamlouk in late 2019 after seeing Luna Al-Shibl leaving his office. Al-Majalla magazine claims its reporters reviewed a document containing the full Arabic transcript of their exchange.
Soleimani reportedly asked, “Who is this?” and Mamlouk replied, “She is Louna Al-Shibl, the president’s adviser.”
The Quds Force commander pressed further: “I know, I know… but who is she really? Where did she work?”
According to Al-Majalla, a sister publication of Arab News, he said her former salary was “ten thousand dollars,” compared with her current salary of “five hundred thousand Syrian pounds,” before asking: “Does it make sense for someone to leave ten thousand dollars for five hundred thousand pounds? She is a spy.”
Both Soleimani and Maher Al-Assad, commander of the Syrian army’s powerful Fourth Division, had warned the ousted president’s inner circle about Al-Shibl, Al-Majalla reported.
‘Suspicious’ car crash
On July 2, 2024, Al-Shibl was involved in what officials described as a traffic accident on the Damascus-Dimas highway. She was hospitalized and died four days later.
But Al-Majalla reported that photos of her armored BMW showed only minor damage, raising immediate questions among those close to the case.
Eyewitnesses told the magazine that the crash was intentional. One said, “a car approached and rammed her vehicle,” and before her bodyguard could exit, “a man attacked her and struck her on the back of the head,” causing paralysis that led to her death.
She was first taken to Al-Saboura clinic, then transferred to Al-Shami Hospital. Several senior regime-linked figures, including businessman Mohammed Hamsho and an aide to Maher Al-Assad, were present when her condition deteriorated. One witness told Al-Majalla that when her bodyguard tried to explain what had happened, “he was arrested immediately in front of the others.”
The presidency later issued a brief statement announcing her death. Her funeral was attended only by a handful of officials. Then president Al-Assad did not attend.
