The French judiciary accused the Ukrainian woman Anna Kozakova (46), close to the governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon, Riad Salameh (72), of having participated in complex financial transactions that allowed Salameh to hide the source of the funds that has “embezzled from the Bank of Lebanon”, as well as concealing the actual ultimate beneficiary of these funds.
The charges against Kozakova included: “forming a criminal organization and laundering serious tax fraud.”
Salama faces many complaints against him in many countries. Last year the Lebanese authorities opened an investigation against him, at the request of the Swiss prosecutor, in the context of investigations into which he and his brother, Raja Salameh, had transferred sums exceeding 300 million dollars. Despite the complaints against Salameh, he is still in the position he has held since 1993, making him one of the longest serving central bank governors in the world.
Beirut’s Appellate Prosecutor, Judge Ziyad Abu Haidar, held that Salameh’s file does not fall within his jurisdiction, while a legal reference attributed, in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, the current procrastination” the irregularity of the judicial structure in Lebanon, and the absence of an authority able to protect the prosecutor in case he took such a decision.
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