Lebanon banking chief set to miss Paris hearing: Judicial official

Riad Salameh is expected to miss a hearing in a French probe due to police failure. Riad Salameh, 72, has been the target of a series of judicial investigations both at home and abroad on allegations including fraud, money laundering and illicit enrichment. Lebanese police officers visited the central bank four times last week to hand him an official summons, but they could not find him anywhere. Salameh, his brother Raja and former assistant Marianne Hoayek have requested that Lebanon suspend cooperation with the European investigators. In February, Lebanon charged Salameh with embezzlement, money laundering and tax evasion as part of its own investigations.

Salameh's lawyers have accused the European investigators of "violating Lebanon's sovereignty" and want them to "permanently suspend" their probe into the central bank's ties to Forry Associates Ltd., a British Virgin Islands-registered company that listed Salameh's brother as its beneficiary. Last month, a Lebanese judge lifted a travel ban imposed on the embattled central bank chief ahead of the planned hearing abroad.