Riad Salameh calls the French arrest warrant a violation of the law as he is being investigated for corruption charges at home and abroad.
French prosecutors have issued an arrest warrant for Lebanese central bank governor Riad Salameh, who denounced the move and promised to appeal.
The order followed Salameh’s failure to appear before French prosecutors on Tuesday to be questioned on corruption charges, officials said.
In a statement, he said the arrest warrant is against the law.
Salameh, 72, has been the target of a series of judicial inquiries at home and abroad on charges including fraud, money laundering and illicit enrichment.
European researchers investigating the fortune he has amassed in his job over three decades had scheduled a hearing in Paris on Tuesday.
A European judicial team from France, Germany and Luxembourg is conducting a corruption investigation into a range of financial crimes, including illicit enrichment and alleged $330 million money laundering.
During a visit to Lebanon in March, a European delegation questioned Salameh about the assets and investments of the Lebanese central bank outside the country, an apartment in Paris owned by the governor and his brother Raja Salameh’s brokerage firm Forry Associates Ltd.
Forry is a British Virgin Islands registered company that listed Salameh’s brother as a beneficiary.
He is suspected of having brokered Lebanese government bonds and Eurobonds against a commission, which would then have been transferred to bank accounts abroad.
Salameh has repeatedly denied all allegations against him. He has insisted that his wealth comes from his previous job as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch, inherited properties and investments.
The central bank chief failed to appear before a judge in Paris after Lebanese authorities failed to hand him the official summons.
Lebanese “police officers visited the central bank four times last week to present Riad Salameh with an official summons” on behalf of the French authorities, a judicial official told Agence France-Presse news agency.
“But they couldn’t find him anywhere,” and the summons was returned to the Lebanese judiciary, which had to notify French authorities, the official said.
Salameh’s whereabouts were unknown.
The date for Tuesday’s hearing was set last month and Lebanon lifted a travel ban on Salameh, who is also under investigation domestically.
In the Lebanon investigation, Beirut’s prosecutor Raja Hamoush in late February charged Salameh, his brother and a close associate with corruption, including misappropriation of public funds, forgery, illicit enrichment, money laundering and violation of tax laws.
Salameh, once hailed as the guardian of Lebanon’s financial stability, has increasingly been blamed for the country’s financial collapse. Many say he helped accelerate the crisis, which has plunged three-quarters of the country’s 6 million people into poverty.
Salameh’s term ends in July and while there is no clear successor, the veteran governor has said in television interviews that he intends to step down.
Defense lawyers representing Salameh, his brother and his former assistant Marianne Hoayek filed a formal request to the prosecution on Monday to suspend European legal assistance. [in the case] because it conflicts with the ongoing Lebanon investigation,” the court official said.
Salameh’s lawyers accuse the European investigators of “violating the sovereignty of Lebanon” and want their investigation into the central bank’s ties to Forry Associates Ltd. “suspend permanently”.