The series of persecuting the governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon, Riad Salameh, witnessed a new development yesterday, Tuesday, as a force from the “State Security” device arrived in front of the bank in the Hamra area, and its elements surrounded him, searching for safety, after the device received information that he was present in it, and he was not. Only a judicial permission is required to enter the headquarters and arrest Salameh.
However, the alternate judge in the Appeals Public Prosecution Office in Beirut, Raja Hamoush, refused to give the signal for “state security” to enter the Banque du Liban, and prevented its raid, then Judge Ghada Aoun arrived, and forcibly entered the bank, accompanied by a number of her companions and elements of state security together, and she said after What we hear from her personally in a video presented by Al-Arabiya.net, quoting the “Voice of Beirut International” website, which provided its news, that Judge Aoun “managed to enter the place and reached the floor that includes Salama’s office,” while the MTV channel stated in its news bulletin, that “The Governor of the Banque du Liban, Riad Salameh, was inside his office at the Central Bank, but Judge Ghada Aoun could not reach him.”
Commenting on the political reactions that followed the raid, Aoun asked, in a tweet, “Has the application of a judicial signal become folklore? Is the attempt to arrest someone accused of several folklore crimes? Should the judiciary take political permission to act in a file containing evidence that provides suspicion? Indeed, perhaps, unfortunately, some have described this as folklore, because in Lebanon it is impossible to hold accountable those who contributed to the collapse of the country if they were influential,” as she put it.
The Appeals Public Prosecutor in Beirut, Judge Raja Hamoush, initially allowed an officer in the State Security Agency responsible for the patrol, to enter the Central Bank for the presence of a search and investigation report regarding Salameh, issued by the Appeal Public Prosecutor in the Governor of Mount Lebanon, Judge Ghada Aoun, and the question about him However, when the execution turned into a raid on an official institution and in the presence of Judge Aoun herself, Judge Hamoush did not allow this permission, considering that the intended location was not a private company, and that the raid was within Beirut’s jurisdiction, which is outside Judge Aoun’s authority.
It was also reported in other Lebanese media sites, including “Lebanon 24,” that Judge Aoun and her companions left the bank “after they met objections from the bank’s employees and some agencies in the state about what happened,” and that the “security force” itself, had previously raided Salameh’s house in The mountainous area of ”Al-Rabieh” near Beirut, after news of his presence there, but she left the house after finding out that he was not there.