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Lebanon Cenbank Governor Says He Will Appeal against French Arrest Warrant

Lebanon's Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh speaks during an interview for Reuters Next conference, in Beirut, Lebanon November 23, 2021. (Reuters)
Lebanon's Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh speaks during an interview for Reuters Next conference, in Beirut, Lebanon November 23, 2021. (Reuters)
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Lebanon Cenbank Governor Says He Will Appeal against French Arrest Warrant

Lebanon's Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh speaks during an interview for Reuters Next conference, in Beirut, Lebanon November 23, 2021. (Reuters)
Lebanon's Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh speaks during an interview for Reuters Next conference, in Beirut, Lebanon November 23, 2021. (Reuters)

French prosecutors have issued an arrest warrant for Lebanon's central bank governor Riad Salameh, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday, a move the governor said he would challenge through an appeal, calling it a violation of law.

The warrant was issued after Salameh failed to attend a hearing in Paris where prosecutors had been expected to press preliminary fraud and money laundering charges against him.

Salameh said in a statement he would appeal against the warrant. He accused the French investigative judge Aude Buresi of taking a decision based on "presumptuous ideas", saying "this is justice based on double standards".

The governor, alongside his brother and an assistant, are being investigated in Lebanon and at least five European countries for allegedly taking hundreds of millions of dollars from the central bank to the detriment of the state.

French prosecutors had set a hearing for him at 9:30 a.m. on May 16, according to court documents seen by Reuters. French prosecutors intend to press the preliminary charges and formally name him a suspect during that hearing.

Two sources with knowledge of his travel plans told Reuters on Tuesday that Salameh had remained in Beirut. Neither Salameh nor his lawyer in Lebanon responded to requests for comment from Reuters.

A French lawyer for Salameh said French prosecutors didn’t follow the rules upon summoning the central bank governor to France.

"By having notified the summons less than 10 days before the scheduled date of the interrogation, the rules were not respected," the lawyer, Pierre-Olivier Sur, told Reuters. "The summons is therefore null and void."

The office of French prosecutors didn't respond to a message seeking comment.

A senior judicial source said Lebanon's judiciary was unable to deliver the summons to attend the Paris hearing as it was addressed to Salameh at the Central Bank and he was unavailable to receive it.

Another judicial source said the defense attorneys for the Salamehs and for the central bank chief's assistant Marianne Hoayek had submitted an objection to Lebanon's judiciary over the French case, saying France should not be allowed to try a case already being investigated in Lebanon.

The three have been charged in two separate cases in Lebanon. Riad and Raja Salameh have denied diverting public funds and neither Hoayek nor her lawyer have spoken publicly about the charges.

Lebanon's top public prosecutor said in January that Beirut could delay cooperating with foreign investigations pending progress on the local probes.

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Arab World

France Urges Israel ‘to Refrain’ from Occupying South Lebanon Zone

France's Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noel Barrot attends an interview with AFP journalists at the Quai d'Orsay French Foreign ministry in Paris on March 24, 2026. (AFP)
France's Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noel Barrot attends an interview with AFP journalists at the Quai d'Orsay French Foreign ministry in Paris on March 24, 2026. (AFP)
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France Urges Israel ‘to Refrain’ from Occupying South Lebanon Zone

France's Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noel Barrot attends an interview with AFP journalists at the Quai d'Orsay French Foreign ministry in Paris on March 24, 2026. (AFP)
France's Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noel Barrot attends an interview with AFP journalists at the Quai d'Orsay French Foreign ministry in Paris on March 24, 2026. (AFP)

Israel should "refrain" from sending in forces to take control of a zone in south Lebanon, France's foreign minister told AFP on Tuesday, warning that such a move would have "major humanitarian consequences".

"We urge the Israeli authorities to refrain from such ground operations, which would have major humanitarian consequences and would exacerbate the country's already dire situation," Jean-Noel Barrot said in an interview with AFP.

His comments came after Israel earlier said its military would take control of south Lebanon up to the Litani River, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border.

Lebanon was pulled into the Middle East war when the Tehran-backed Hezbollah group began firing rockets into Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Israel has since launched strikes across Lebanon, killing at least 1,072 people and displacing more than a million others in more than three weeks of fighting. It has also sent ground troops into the country's south.

Barrot, who visited Lebanon and Israel last week, called on Israel to seize a "historic opportunity" for dialogue with Lebanon's government, saying that Beirut was "turning its words into action" to counter Tehran's interference in the country.

He noted that during his visit to Lebanon on March 19, President Joseph Aoun called for a truce and the opening of negotiations with Israel to stop the war between it and Hezbollah.

"There is a moment to seize, it is historic, and that moment is now," Barrot said, calling for "high-level political dialogue" with the Lebanese government.

Lebanon's government has acted against Iranian interests and withdrew its approval of the Iranian ambassador's accreditation on Tuesday, a decision Barrot hailed as "courageous".

Iranian ambassador Mohammad Reza Sheibani was told to leave Lebanese territory by Sunday.

"I wish to commend the statements and actions of the Lebanese government...which this morning took a courageous decision by expelling the Iranian ambassador," Barrot said.

Hezbollah strongly objected to the move, calling on the government to reverse it.

It was "no small matter" that Lebanon's government had also expelled "a number of representatives of the Revolutionary Guards" in the country, Barrot said, referring to the country's ideological army.

Beirut has accused Iran's Revolutionary Guards of commanding Hezbollah's operations in its war against Israel, having decided on March 5 to ban all activity by the organization in the country.

The government also took the unprecedented step of imposing a ban on Hezbollah military activities and called on the group to hand over its weapons to the state.

Arab World

Israeli Army Says Strike Killed Lebanese Member of Iran’s Quds Force

A photograph shows the damage after an Israeli strike targeted an apartment in Hazmieh, on the eastern outskirts of Beirut, on March 23, 2026. (AFP)
A photograph shows the damage after an Israeli strike targeted an apartment in Hazmieh, on the eastern outskirts of Beirut, on March 23, 2026. (AFP)
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Israeli Army Says Strike Killed Lebanese Member of Iran’s Quds Force

A photograph shows the damage after an Israeli strike targeted an apartment in Hazmieh, on the eastern outskirts of Beirut, on March 23, 2026. (AFP)
A photograph shows the damage after an Israeli strike targeted an apartment in Hazmieh, on the eastern outskirts of Beirut, on March 23, 2026. (AFP)

Israel announced on Tuesday that a strike it carried out near Beirut the day before killed a member of Iran's Quds Force, who a Lebanese security source said had survived a previous attack in the same area.

On Monday Israel struck an apartment in Hazmieh, an upscale town overlooking Beirut and near the presidential palace and diplomatic missions.

In a statement Tuesday, the Israeli army said it had killed Mohammed Ali Kurani, "a Quds Force terrorist who was advancing terror attacks directed by Iranian intelligence officials".

The Quds Force is the foreign operations arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

A Lebanese security source told AFP that Kurani hailed from Nabatieh governorate in south Lebanon, and was "known by his military alias Haj Sadeq".

The source said he was a "security officer" in the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, and by virtue of his position, would likely have been coordinating with the Quds Force.

Kurani survived an earlier March 4 strike on a hotel, also in Hazmieh, with the source saying "a recording that night documented his leaving the hotel with his wife and son".

The strike hit the room where he and his family had stayed for just two hours, and resulted in injuries to a receptionist who later died of her wounds.

Monday's strike targeted a room in an apartment that had been rented in his wife's name since last October, the source added, noting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and his sister own two units in the same building.

Lebanon was dragged into the Middle East war on March 2 when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in retaliation for US-Israeli attacks that killed Iran's supreme leader.

Following Monday's strike, Hazmieh Mayor Jean Asmar announced the municipality would take new measures with regards to hosting people displaced by the war "so that this incident is not repeated".

Arab World

Sudan’s RSF Says Captured Strategic Town on Ethiopia Border

RSF commander Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, center, greets the crowd during a military-backed tribes' rally in the Nile River State of Sudan, July 13, 2019. (AP)
RSF commander Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, center, greets the crowd during a military-backed tribes' rally in the Nile River State of Sudan, July 13, 2019. (AP)
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Sudan’s RSF Says Captured Strategic Town on Ethiopia Border

RSF commander Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, center, greets the crowd during a military-backed tribes' rally in the Nile River State of Sudan, July 13, 2019. (AP)
RSF commander Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, center, greets the crowd during a military-backed tribes' rally in the Nile River State of Sudan, July 13, 2019. (AP)

Sudanese paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces said on Tuesday that it and its allies had seized control of the town of Kurmuk on the border with Ethiopia after "fierce fighting".

"Elite troops from the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) have succeeded in fully liberating the strategic town of Kurmuk," the RSF said in a statement.

Its forces also took over two other nearby areas, it said, "following fierce fighting waged since yesterday".

On Tuesday morning, a representative of the army-aligned government in Damazin, the capital of Blue Nile state where Kurmuk is located, said "the situation in Kurmuk is critical and it's very difficult for the forces on the ground to hold their positions".

Fighting began on Sunday around the small border town in the far southeast of Sudan, which the army considers vital because it sits on one of the few roads to Ethiopia.

The faction of the SPLM-N led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu and allied to the RSF maintains a foothold in southern Blue Nile, a narrow strip of land jutting south between Ethiopia and South Sudan.

From there, it reportedly maintains supply lines from both countries, building on decades-old links.

Ethiopia has denied separate allegations that it is harboring RSF camps.

The war in Sudan, which began in 2023, pits the RSF against the regular army and has left tens of thousands dead, displaced around 11 million people and triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.