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The National
22-04-2025
- Business
- The National
Lebanon could seek $1bn in damages in foreign courts over country's largest financial scandal
The Salameh Papers: Full coverage here Lebanon could claim up to $1 billion in damages through foreign courts in relation to the country's largest financial scandal, known as the Forry case, in which hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds were allegedly embezzled and invested in real estate abroad, a former Lebanese prosecutor has told The National. The compensation could include $330 million allegedly misappropriated from Lebanon's central bank since 2002 by its disgraced former governor Riad Salameh, as well as interest accrued over more than two decades, former judge Jean Tannous said. The funds could offer some relief for the cash-strapped country, which has been grappling with a crippling economic crisis for over five years, with its political and financial elite showing little willingness to reform a paralysed banking sector or address financial losses estimated at $70 billion. 'This would require the state to intervene actively in foreign proceedings, prove the public origin of the funds, and assert its rights under international asset recovery mechanisms,' Mr Tannous said. The Forry case, named after a shell company owned by the former central bank governor's brother that was allegedly used to embezzle funds, is the subject of investigation by several European countries, including France, Luxembourg, Germany and Switzerland. In Lebanon, Mr Tannous led a high-stakes investigation spanning 18 months into the former central bank governor and his entourage, facing consistent political interference. He resigned from the judiciary in 2022. In a rare interview, Mr Tannous outlined lessons to be learnt from Lebanon's biggest money laundering scandal, which stretched from the coffers of the central bank to luxury real estate in Europe and the US. Mr Salameh, who is currently detained in Beirut over a separate embezzlement scandal, was once seen as the linchpin of Lebanon's financial sector. He is now widely blamed for the country's economic collapse, as the architect of a national-scale Ponzi scheme that collapsed in 2019. Mr Salameh, and his brother, who is alleged to have assisted him in setting up a slush fund at the Banque du Liban, have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Mr Tannous said Lebanon is yet to take decisive steps to recover assets abroad allegedly bought with public funds. While the Lebanese state is legally recognised as a victim in the Forry case, any recovery of the misappropriated funds from abroad is not guaranteed, even in the event of a conviction. Lebanon has joined some foreign proceedings, including in France and Switzerland, as a civil party – a move that paves the way for asset recovery. But Mr Tannous said the state has failed to appoint legal representation for the Lebanese state in Switzerland, which 'can limit the impact' of court decisions. Lebanon has also filed a complaint against HSBC in Switzerland, accusing the bank in its first legal action against a foreign lender of ignoring red flags and enabling the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars in suspected embezzled funds from the central bank. HSBC is among several international banks where the Salameh brothers held accounts allegedly used to move public funds out of Lebanon. 'Lebanon must broaden its local criminal investigations to include all foreign financial institutions potentially involved – not just in Switzerland, but also in France, Luxembourg, Germany, the UK, and the United States,' Mr Tannous said. 'Without that, even the most clear-cut embezzlement risks ending in impunity and unrecovered losses.' Setting up an international money laundering scheme is not a one-person job. The Forry scandal has exposed fault across the board – from international banks and audit firms to the central bank itself. 'Any potential criminal activity at BDL inevitably points to a network of internal complicities,' Mr Tannous said. 'Years of unchecked authority concentrated in the person of the governor, combined with paralysed internal governing bodies, particularly the central board. Legal and compliance departments were reduced to bureaucratic formalities, and internal controls failed to assert any real authority.' Mr Salameh's unchecked authority and the central bank's weak internal governance, which were glossed over as long as Lebanon's financial system appeared stable and dollars kept flowing, were sharply criticised in a 2023 forensic audit. Karim Souaid, the new central bank governor who took office in March, has pledged to combat money laundering and terror financing. 'These intentions must quickly translate into tangible reforms, including the reactivation of internal governance structures such as the central board, compliance, and audit units with full authority,' Mr Tannous said. 'Most critically, the long-standing system of political interference, which allowed the placement of relatives and affiliates of political figures in key positions, must be dismantled through strict conflict-of-interest rules, merit-based hiring, and institutional transparency,' he added. Despite the scale of the crisis and the embezzlement allegations, there have been no significant staff changes at the central bank to date. 'Any individual working at BDL can be held criminally responsible if it is proven that they took part in financial crimes,' Mr Tannous said. These include serious offences such as breach of trust, abuse of power, aiding embezzlement, money laundering, or hiding evidence, he added. 'Even choosing to do nothing in the face of clear wrongdoing may be considered criminal negligence.' The election of former army chief Joseph Aoun as Lebanese president and the appointment of international jurist Nawaf Salam as prime minister, ending more than two years of political vacuum in the country, have renewed hopes for reform and accountability. Mr Tannous said the Lebanese public is watching whether judicial investigations will move forward without political interference and whether accountability will be achieved. 'The Forry case revealed how the concentration of power, institutional opacity, and the absence of independent oversight mechanisms can foster systemic abuse, entrench corruption, and reinforce impunity,' he said. 'Despite the magnitude of this scandal, no meaningful lessons have been drawn yet.'
Yahoo
07-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Johnstown hospital's response team adds cold weather treatment plan
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (WTAJ) — Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center added a hypothermia treatment plan to their Disaster Assistance Response Team. DART is an additional resource to other EMS agencies to aid in patient care. With recent subzero temperatures and two fatal cases of hypothermia in Cambria and Somerset counties, this new tool can help provide a necessary resource. 'Some of our team members started talking about ways that we could improve our response capabilities for that,' Seth Forry, the prehospital operations manager at Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center said. 'With that, we took some equipment that we already had at the hospital and had easy access to and basically put it in our mobile unit.' Pizza shops urge designated driving for Super Bowl Sunday The units are filled with the Bair Hugger machine, which pumps heat into a blanket to warm the patient, along with hot packs. These items are not necessarily found in the average ambulance. 'If we're going to assist another entity that's requested us, then they kind of give us what exactly we need to bring with us,' flight paramedic Jacob Burkhart said. Time is of the essence when it comes to hypothermia treatment. Victims can see their internal body temperature decrease the longer they are exposed to cold conditions. Keeping the victim warm as they head to the hospital is also critical in their treatment. 'We don't want them to get cold again because that can have detrimental effects as well,' Forry added. 'In cases of hypothermia, the body initially starts to shiver to try and generate heat, to preserve its temperature. After a while, that mechanism goes away, and then metabolism starts to slow down, and eventually organ systems will start to shut down, which is bad. That can affect neurological, cardiac, all kinds of things. If we can try and get them before they get severely hypothermic, we can try and limit the damage that way.' Since their launch in 1982, the new initiative has yielded a result. Within 24 hours after deployment, they treated a Johnstown man who had a body temperature of 92 degrees Fahrenheit, three degrees below the point where hypothermia sets in. The winter months are known to be the main season for hypothermia, but Forry says otherwise. 'It can happen year round, even in the middle of summer, in an air conditioned environment,' Forry added. 'So really we were focused on the winter weather conditions. But this is something that could be applied year round.' DART plans to assist EMS services around the Johnstown area. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
