Lebanon's billionaire PM Mikati denies corruption claims

Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati denied any wrongdoing after two anti-corruption organizations filed a complaint against him and his family alleging financial fraud including money laundering.

The complaint was submitted in France this week by anti-corruption watchdog Sherpa and the Collective of Victims of Fraudulent and Criminal Practices in Lebanon. Sherpa's lawyer William Bourdon called for an investigation despite any legal protections  granted to Mikati through his office.

"That's the kind of mechanical consequences of being a billionaire politician — you consider your position to be a kind of shelter against prosecution," Bourdon told the Reuters news agency.

Echoes of Riad Salameh's scandal

Anti-corruption activists hope the probe will "shed light on the conditions under which Lebanese political figures like Najib Mikati accumulated considerable wealth and on the role of financial intermediaries who facilitated these acquisitions."

They also hope to draw the investigators' attention to alleged connections between Najib Mikati and Lebanon's former central bank governor Riad Salameh, whose decades-long tenure ended with a corruption scandal last year.

France and Germany have issued arrest warrants for Salameh and his brother Raja as part of investigations into allegations of seizing hundreds of millions of dollars from Lebanon's central bank funds.

What did Mikati say?

In response, Mikati's office issued an official statement dismissing the allegations as "part of the media campaign" against him and saying they were intended to "insult him and his family members."

The statement claims that Mikati's and his family's wealth was obtained transparently and legally, and that the politician had not been officially notified of the complaint.  

According to Forbes, Najib Mikati's net worth is estimated to be $2.8 billion (€2.58 billion) as of 2023, making him one of the richest men in Lebanon. The 68-year-old and his brother founded the telecommunications company Investcom in the 1980s and sold it in 2006 for $5.5 billion.

Mikati has served as Lebanon's prime minister since 2021.

ac/dj (AP, Reuters)