President Michel Aoun said Saturday that Lebanon would seek evidence and documents from the United States that led Washington to impose sanctions on Friday on his son-in-law Gebran Bassil.
Aoun asked the country's caretaker foreign minister to obtain the evidence and documents that should be submitted to Lebanon's judiciary "to take the necessary legal measures,” said a statement.
On Friday, the US Treasury slapped sanctions on Bassil, who is a former foreign minister and the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, singling him out for what it said was his role in corruption.
The FPM has a political alliance with Hezbollah and Bassil has defended the group as vital to the defense of Lebanon.
The Treasury Department said Bassil was at the "forefront of corruption in Lebanon" where successive governments have failed to reduce mounting sovereign debt or address failing infrastructure and the loss-making power sector that cost state coffers billions of dollars while power cuts persisted.
"Through his corrupt activities, Bassil has also undermined good governance and contributed to the prevailing system of corruption and political patronage that plagues Lebanon, which has aided and abetted Hezbollah’s destabilizing activities," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.
Bassil tweeted on Friday that the sanctions do not frighten him.
The US announcement came as Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri is struggling to form a new government in Lebanon, which has been hit by the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history.
