Oueidat asks Aoun to halt her banks probe pending recusal ruling

State Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat on Tuesday asked Mt. Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun to suspend her investigations into the banks file until a ruling is issued in the lawsuit against her.

BLOM Bank, Creditbank and Saradar Bank had recently agreed to cooperate with Aoun in her request to lift banking secrecy off several accounts to facilitate her probe into the suspected illegal transfer of funds abroad by bankers, businessmen and politicians.

“These funds were withdrawn in fresh dollars from the central bank and were returned in banking dollars (lollars) whose value were equivalent to 1/5 of the black market exchange rate,” al-Akhbar newspaper said.

The judge had recently filed a lawsuit against Bank Audi and asked 15 others banks to submit information and lift banking secrecy. Aoun’s decision followed a lawsuit filed by depositors against some banks.

“On Nov. 11, 2009 the central bank had agreed to grant banks a large quantity of dollars on the condition that they be exclusively used in Lebanon and with an interest rate that reached 20%. It later turned out that 15 banks withdrew those funds, estimated at $8.3 billion, in the period between Nov. 2019 and March 2020,” al-Akhbar said.

“The banks returned the funds to the central bank through their lollar liquidity and sent around $4 billion abroad to cover up for commitments to correspondent banks and transfers for the benefit of influential local figures, members of the boards of these banks and some top depositors,” the newspaper added.