For most people, a trip to the bank is nothing remarkable. For millions of Lebanese, it can be an ordeal. According to the World Bank, the country’s banking sector is insolvent. Capital controls, restrictions on international transfers and customers’ inability to get their savings back have led many Lebanese to take to the streets. Last week, angry depositors protested outside three banks in Beirut, some lighting fires and smashing glass doors.
Their experience is a far cry from that of the man who was once the most powerful banking figure in Lebanon. For three decades, Riad Salameh was one of the country’s most influential individuals. However, his arrest in September 2024 on charges of embezzling public funds, forgery, illicit enrichment and money laundering, uncovered a new side to someone once lauded as the guardian of country's financial sector. Critics have accused Mr Salameh of helping shape the policies that contributed to Lebanon’s financial collapse in 2019, a catastrophe that has been blamed on decades' worth of elite-level corruption and financial mismanagement.
Having been indicted in July last year and released on $20 million bail, Mr Salameh was detained on Friday at Bhannes Hospital, north of Beirut, after failing to appear before a judge for questioning the previous day. It is a significant moment for Lebanon and for a figure so closely associated with the country’s monetary system. This is where attention should be focused, not on one man alone but on a network that has repeatedly let the Lebanese people and their country down.
In Lebanon, political authority, banking interests and regulatory structures have intersected in ways that resisted scrutiny. As Fouad Debs, a lawyer with Lebanon’s Depositors’ Association told The National on Saturday: “The whole issue with the Riad Salameh case, as well as that of other bankers involved in this crisis, is that in Lebanon, justice and accountability are very slow, if they ever happen.”
For Lebanon to truly turn a corner, the judicial process must be fair. Anything less risks reinforcing the perception that accountability is selective. This is not a legalistic abstraction; investor confidence depends on certainty. Countries and institutions willing to support Lebanon financially are already cautious and will want to see evidence that corruption is being tackled, and that reforms are credible.
It is fair to say that this a formidable task. Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanese territory as has displaced more than a million people. Hezbollah continues to operate as a rogue state within a state. Lebanon’s economy and institutions are stretched. Pursuing complex financial investigations may appear to be secondary right now – but it is vital if Lebanon is to break with the past.
Mr Salameh is entitled to the presumption of innocence. Due process, not public sentiment, should determine the outcome of this investigation. If handled correctly, this scrutiny may become an opportunity to prove that accountability can reach even entrenched networks with vested interests, not just one man. Scapegoating, half measures or questionable trials is not what the Lebanese people deserve.
