Lebanon Former Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh Arrested

Lebanon's Former Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh speaks with AFP in an interview at his Beirut office. (AFP)
Lebanon's Former Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh speaks with AFP in an interview at his Beirut office. (AFP)
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Lebanon Former Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh Arrested

Lebanon's Former Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh speaks with AFP in an interview at his Beirut office. (AFP)
Lebanon's Former Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh speaks with AFP in an interview at his Beirut office. (AFP)

Lebanon's former central bank governor, Riad Salameh, was arrested on Tuesday during a judicial hearing in the capital Beirut, a senior judicial source told Reuters.

Salameh has been charged with financial crimes including money-laundering, embezzlement and illicit enrichment. He denies all wrongdoing.

Salameh was Lebanon's central bank governor for 30 years until July 2023. In his final months as governor, Germany issued an arrest warrant for him on corruption charges.

He is being investigated in Lebanon and at least five European countries for allegedly taking hundreds of millions of dollars from Lebanon's central bank to the detriment of the Lebanese state and laundering the funds abroad.

 The CEO of Lebanon's Optimum Invest said the firm had not been present at Tuesday's hearing over its dealings with  Salameh.

Reine Abboud told Reuters the firm had heard of the arrest through the media, and said it had carried out a financial audit earlier this year of its interactions with the central bank that found no evidence of wrongdoing by the firm.

 

 

 



UN Agency Says Israel Shuts 4 Schools in East Jerusalem

A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
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UN Agency Says Israel Shuts 4 Schools in East Jerusalem

A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees says Israeli forces raided four of its schools in east Jerusalem, ordering their closure.

Israel has severed all ties with the agency, known as UNRWA, and bars it from operating in its territory. It says the agency allowed itself to be infiltrated by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, allegations denied by UN officials.

UNRWA said police entered a training center by force on Tuesday, firing tear gas and sound grenades and ordering its evacuation. It said 350 students and 30 staff were present during the raid on the Qalandiya Training Center.

It said police and city officials ordered the closure of three other schools in east Jerusalem, two of which proceeded with the school day.

Israeli police spokesman Dean Elsdunne said police did not enter the UN buildings and that Jerusalem municipal authorities carried out the closures. He said police were deployed to protect the city workers, using “riot dispersal” means in one case where a crowd threw stones at them outside a UN facility.

Roland Friedrich, UNRWA director for the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem, said the raids were an “unacceptable violation of United Nations privileges and immunities,” and a “denial of the right to education for children and trainees.”