October 15, 2026
The Public Appeal Attorney in Mount Lebanon, Judge Bilal Adnan Badr, filed a lawsuit against the arrested lawyer, Rabab M. Crimes of forging an official document attributed to the judicial authority, forging seals and using forged ones, fraud, and impersonating judges, in addition to crimes related to influencing the conduct of the judicial authority and defaming it. The file was referred to the first investigating judge in Mount Lebanon, Judge Nada Al-Asmar, who set October 14 as the date for her interrogation, in accordance with Articles 459, 454, 438, 655, 392, 357, and 386 of the Penal Code.
The roots of the case go back to the year 2024, when the suspect, after getting to know the Hayek family through Joseph Zogheib, pursued a family inheritance dispute against their uncle, Baskar Hayek. She explained in her statement that she had issued a warning to the uncle through a notary public, informing him officially in Jounieh, without filing any lawsuit later.
The investigation report showed that the lawyer received more than $50,000 US dollars from her client in payments over a period of about six months to file and follow up on the lawsuit, but she admitted to spending the money to pay off her debts. Although the lawsuit was not filed, she continued to deceive the family into following up on the file and winning the litigation stages, claiming that the uncle deposited an amount of 3 million dirhams (according to her statement) with the court to be transferred to their bank account through a series of alleged movements from the bank to the court and then to “Bank Audi,” at a time when the investigation did not prove the existence of any lawsuit or deposited amount.
To prevent the truth from being discovered, the lawyer resorted to calling Joseph Al-Hayek from blocked numbers, impersonating a bank employee, to inform him of the delay in the transfer. She also admitted to impersonating judges, including the first president of the Mount Lebanon Court of Appeal, Judge Mirna Bayda, and judges Amani Salama and Reem Al-Hajjar, as investigators listened to audio recordings confirming her imitation of Judge Bayda’s voice.
On July 14, 2026, a notice appeared addressed to the director of “Bank Audi” and attributed to the presidency of the Court of Appeal in Mount Lebanon ordering the delivery of a financial sum to the concerned parties. This is the letter that Judge Mirna Bayda referred to the Public Prosecution of Appeal to verify its authenticity. In her confession, the lawyer indicated that she prepared the notice and printed it in a library, and signed in its place the first president of the court, using seals that she made with a rope placed on the lid of a plastic water bottle. She showed the paper to the Al-Hayek family in a café near the New Court, asking Joseph Al-Hayek to photograph it with his phone before tearing up the original copy and destroying it, confirming that her companion and creditor, Ali Mashayek, did not know about the forgery.
The notice complaint was registered on August 17 and attached to an order sheet on September 2. On October 6, the lawyer reported that she had inquired about the prosecution permit from the Beirut Bar Association, only to be informed of the necessity of notifying the Bar Council’s decision because she had ten days to appeal, while the investigations continued because there was no decision to stop the prosecution. On the eighth of the same month, after hearing additional testimonies, the Public Prosecutor of Appeal in Mount Lebanon, Judge Sami Sader, ordered the lawyer’s arrest and seized $8,500 in her possession, allocated for her children’s school fees, and informed the Beirut Bar Association, noting that she had moved with members of the Baabda Judicial Detachment without being exposed to any abuse.
The lawyer also touched on a previous arrest warrant in absentia against her in another file that was dropped after paying a surety bond of 110,000 US dollars secured with the help of Ali Taj Al-Din in exchange for purchasing a property for her husband in Al-Ghobeiry, in addition to referring to another complaint registered against her with the Al-Dahiya detachment, so that all these facts and accusations remain subject to the course of the judicial investigation pending the interrogation session before Judge Nada Al-Asmar.
