Ex-head of Lebanese central bank in court over suspected fraud

The former head of Lebanon's central bank Riad Salameh appeared in court yesterday for the first time since his arrest last week on charges of embezzling up to $42m (£32m) of public funds.

- William Christou

Salameh, once vaunted as a financial wizard who earned Lebanon its reputation as the "Switzerland of the Middle East" during his 30-year tenure, is suspected of engineering a countrywide Ponzi scheme that caused Lebanon's 2019 financial meltdown and its five-year-long economic crisis.

Salameh is accused of concealing massive embezzlement from the central bank through creative accounting and by offering interest rates of up to 20%, which consistently attracted new capital. In 2019, a run on the banks brought the years-long scheme to an abrupt halt.

Millions of people lost their life savings in the resulting financial crisis and the country's currency depreciated by more than 95%.

Lebanon is now primarily a cash economy as the government has yet to pass a financial recovery plan to revive the insolvent banking sector.