The Lebanese judiciary is investigating the theft of $318,000 from the country’s embassy in Ukraine, a court official told AFP today, Monday, as the Foreign Ministry works to cut spending on its missions in light of the economic collapse. .
From September, suspicions of embezzlement surfaced, on which the Lebanese judiciary later opened investigations, according to which the ambassador detained at the embassy was interrogated several times.
A court official familiar with the case said: “The embezzlement affected the embassy fund, which is replenished with fees for renewing passports for children of the Lebanese community living in Ukraine, agencies, fees for marriage contracts and others.”
He pointed out that “preliminary estimates showed that the value of the stolen funds amounted to 318 thousand US dollars.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs withdrew the ambassador’s hand and placed him at his disposal until the end of ongoing investigations, having previously summoned him and his assistant to Beirut.
According to the same source, the assistant disappeared from view after being present at one of the interrogations, after which the prosecutor’s office of the Court of Cassation issued “a protocol of investigation and investigation against the assistant and a ruling prohibiting him from traveling with his Ukrainian wife.”
According to the preliminary investigation, it was established that the assistant deposited money into his personal account in a Ukrainian bank, while sending a letter to the ministry with a notification about the transfer of money to his account.
According to the source, “the testimony of the ambassador and his assistant before the investigation contradicted each other.”
The official said the ministry “didn’t check these transfers, didn’t check the embassy, and didn’t tell him that the money didn’t reach his account in Lebanon.”
The investigation also clears up suspicions about the real cost of renting the ambassador’s house in Kyiv.
A diplomatic source in Beirut confirmed to Agence France Presse that “judicial investigations into the financial case are ongoing at the Ukrainian embassy.”
He pointed out that the work at the embassy was actually suspended after the start of the war in Ukraine.
And in light of the economic collapse in Lebanon since the fall of 2019, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry last year made a proposal to suspend the work of 17 missions around the world in order to reduce costs, but the government did not take a decision. in this respect.
“Currently, costs and the number of employees are being reduced to reduce the workload as much as possible,” a diplomatic source said.
The economic collapse hit government agencies, whose salaries were cut sharply as the lira lost 98 percent of its value against the dollar.
