Today, Monday, the Public Prosecutor in Lebanon suspended the implementation of judicial instructions issued last week to the customs authorities to prevent six banks from transferring funds outside the country. He prompted the Association of Banks to warn that banks would be cut off from their dealings with their counterparts abroad and trade would be prohibited.
The decision issued by Judge Ghada Aoun applies to Audi Banks, Beirut, Credit Banks, Societe Generale in Lebanon, Bloom and Med. The judge froze the assets of all those banks this month in separate decisions while investigating their transactions.
The judge also prevented the heads of the boards of directors of those banks from traveling.
None of the aforementioned parties were charged with any crime.
The source said that the Discriminatory Public Prosecutor, Ghassan Oweidat, “decided to reverse” the implementation of this decision.
Last week, the banks organized a two-day strike to protest what it described as arbitrary judicial decisions.
The banking system has been paralyzed, with most depositors’ accounts in US dollars frozen, since the collapse of the Lebanese financial system in 2019, in one of the most severe economic meltdowns in the world.