Impunity fears renewed in Lebanon as Riad Salameh walks free

The release of Lebanon's former central bank governor, on a record $14 million bail last month, has raised new concerns over lingering impunity in the corruption-ridden country.

Riad Salameh, who is wanted internationally and is under investigation abroad for allegedly laundering hundreds of millions of dollars from bankrupt Lebanon into luxury properties overseas, was released from a medical facility in north Beirut, 13 months after his arrest over alleged financial crimes committed during his tenure.

Mr Salameh was placed in pretrial detention in Lebanon in September 2024 pending an investigation, launched last year, into the alleged embezzlement of $44 million from the central bank known as the Optimum scandal.

For lawyer Fouad Debs, the scant progress in Mr Salameh's investigation after a year is a reflection of the Lebanese judiciary's deep flaws.

“I find it intriguing that in major public cases like this, investigations are systematically very slow,” he said, adding that the delays serve as a way to postpone accountability.

“Justice delayed is justice denied,” he added.

Once revered as a financial wizard, Mr Salameh's fall from grace began with the collapse of Lebanon’s economy, described by experts as one of the biggest potential nationwide Ponzi schemes, from which he and his entourage allegedly profited for years through complex financial dealings.

Mr Salameh has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

“It makes us wonder about impunity in Lebanon, where the laws seem to be applied only to the weaker segments of society, while the powerful walk free, untouchable,” Mr Debs said.

Mr Salameh was the most senior Lebanese official to be arrested since the country's financial collapse. The ruling elite in Lebanon is rarely held accountable, according to experts and political activists.

Former justice minister Marie-Claude Najm, of Saint Joseph University in Beirut, told The National that the concern lies not so much in his release from pretrial, but in the fact that the case has still not been referred to a competent court and that a trial has yet to begin, whether to convict or clear Mr Salameh’s name. He is presumed innocent pending the court's verdict.

While local inquiries have remained in limbo, which observers attribute in part to political influence, investigations abroad have gathered pace, with an arrest warrant issued in France and hundreds of millions of dollars seized across Europe.

The judiciary has also imposed a one-year travel ban on the former governor. Mr Salameh is the subject of an Interpol red notice and cannot travel without risking provisional detention by authorities abroad.

Some observers saw the move as a way to protect the former governor inside Lebanon. “Lebanon's judiciary seems only preoccupied with shielding him from investigations abroad,” Mr Debs said.

Record bail

Another question mark concerns the amount of the bail – a Lebanese record at $14 million, despite authorities having frozen his bank accounts after he was sanctioned by the UK, US and Canada. Most of his assets in Europe also remain frozen.

“Providing such large amounts of cash while ordinary Lebanese can’t even withdraw $5,000 from the bank raises red flags over money laundering risks, especially in this context,” Mr Debs said.

Foreign judiciaries have, in their investigations, repeatedly highlighted discrepancies between Mr Salameh's vast wealth and his position as a long-serving civil servant.

It remains unclear how he was able to pay the bail, unless someone else paid for him, as some observers suggested.

In any case, Jean Tannous, the former judge who led a separate 11-month probe into Mr Salameh that was shelved following alleged political pressure, told The National that Mr Salameh, as a public servant, must prove the legitimacy of his funds. Otherwise, they will be considered illicit.

“Under the law on illicit enrichment, the burden of proof is reversed; it’s Mr Salameh who has to prove that his money is clean, as it is not automatically considered as such,” Mr Tannous explained.

The decision to deposit the $14 million into the Judges’ Mutual Fund, which manages social and welfare benefits for judges and magistrates in Lebanon, also sparked controversy.

In a question to the government, MP Melhem Khalaf, a former head of the Beirut Bar Association, said the fund is “an entity without the legal authority to receive public penal funds”.

According to Mr Khalaf, it “raises suspicions about the destination of these funds and the mechanisms governing their management”.

But Mr Tannous said the money was kept there only because there were not enough safes in the Justice Palace, describing it as a simple matter of storage.

He added that the funds retain their private character and remain the property of Mr Salameh until the conclusion of his trial.

They may only be deemed public funds upon fulfilment of the legal conditions for confiscation and the issuance of a definitive order to that effect, conditions which are not met at this stage.

For the fund to ever be returned to the state, if proven stolen, the Lebanese judiciary would have to eventually continue with the investigation, which has been in limbo for months.