Monaco

Lawyers had thought Lebanese judiciary ending its housing loans probe would jeopardise principality probe.

“There have been more than three years between the last loan in 2013 and the start of the proceedings. “The file was abandoned due to procedural issues and not because of its merits. He has denied interfering in the judiciary's work. But Mr Daher also referred to the case of Teddy Obiang, son of Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. “If the Lebanese judiciary dismissed that a crime was originally committed on its soil, this could block the foreign procedure. received nine real estate loans” from Bank Audi. Lebanon opened its own investigation into the housing loans case in 2019, after allegations that politicians and affluent individuals benefited from fraudulent central bank-subsidised loans. In 2017, Teddy Obiang was convicted in absentia by a French court of embezzlement, money laundering, corruption and abuse of trust. “The reason that it was leaked to the public, in our opinion, is part of the continuing politically motivated smear campaign,” Maher Mikati said. “It would be unthinkable that the public prosecutor of Monaco could be fooled by this trick to extinguish the proceedings opened against Mr Mikati,” he said. He said the case “ended with the submission of the documents to Beirut investigative judge, who issued a motion to dismiss and that this decision is definitive”, in the letter seen by the National. “An investigation is currently ongoing in the Principality of Monaco and it has been entrusted to the judicial police division of the Public Security,” the Monaco General Prosecutor’s Office said.