“Lebanon Debate”
In September 2025, Riad Salama needed $14 million to leave detention. His bail was reduced from 20 million to 14 million dollars, and the amount was paid, so the former governor of the Bank of Lebanon was released from prison, but his release opened a new question before the judiciary: Where did the money come from, and who secured it at this time? Less than two weeks later, the name of Marwan Khairuddin, Chairman of the Board of Directors of AM Bank and former minister, appeared again on the scene, after the discriminatory Public Prosecutor, Judge Jamal Al-Hajjar, interrogated him regarding the source of the bail.
According to the information published about the investigation, Salama said that Khairuddin was the one who prepared the amount, while the latter was quoted as saying that the operation was carried out in exchange for mortgaging 3 properties to a real estate company he owns called “Mawared Properties.” The case remained under investigation, and no ruling was issued proving that there was a violation in the method of securing the bail. However, the importance of the incident does not lie in the $14 million alone, but rather in the fact that the name of Marwan Khair Al-Din appeared once again at a sensitive financial stage in the life of Riad Salama.
When the facts that have emerged over the past years are placed on one timeline, Khair al-Din does not appear to be a passing name in Salama’s file. It appears in personal accounts, in transfers from members of his family, in banking services carried out at his request, and in documents that Salama used to defend the source of his wealth before the French judiciary, and then his name returns in the bail file after the end of the governorship and arrest. Here the question becomes beyond friendship between two men: What did the relationship between the Governor of the Bank of Lebanon and the head of a commercial bank under his supervision produce?
According to bank statements reviewed by Reuters, the funds in accounts linked to Salama at the Mawarid Bank rose from about $15 million in 1993 to more than $150 million by 2019. Salama confirmed that his wealth is legitimate and goes back to money he accumulated before assuming power and to subsequent investments and interests. However, these accounts gained additional importance when the bank itself became part of the narrative that Salama used before the French judiciary to explain the source of his wealth.
During the European investigations, Salama submitted to the investigators a memorandum of about 65 pages that he obtained from Khairuddin, which included data and bank statements explaining the growth of his money, before the French investigators raised objections regarding the validity of some of the restrictions contained therein, according to what was published based on judicial documents. Khair al-Din denied, through his defense, any wrongdoing, and Salameh maintained the legitimacy of his wealth, but the incident showed the extent to which the Resource Bank entered the heart of the personal and financial profile of the former governor of the Bank of Lebanon.
Before arriving in Paris, Al-Mawarid Bank’s relationship with the Salama family had emerged at one of the most sensitive stages of the Lebanese crisis. In the fall of 2019, while the Lebanese were entering the era of banking restrictions and discovering that access to their savings was no longer guaranteed, an OCCRP investigation based on bank documents revealed that Nada Salama, the governor’s son, transferred more than $6.5 million abroad through his accounts at the Resources Bank, and that the bulk of these transfers took place after the informal restrictions on depositors had actually begun.
Al-Mawarid Bank said at the time that it was committed to banking laws and best international practices and refused to enter into the details of its customers’ accounts. The transfers themselves do not prove the existence of a crime, but they raise a basic question about privilege. At the moment when thousands of Lebanese were unable to freely dispose of their money, accounts linked to the ruler’s family were able to move millions of dollars abroad, which brings the question back to the essence of the crisis: Who had access to their money, who could not, and why?
This question became clearer when the voice of Marwan Khairuddin himself appeared before the French judiciary. In March 2023, Khairuddin was placed under official investigation in France as part of the file related to Salama’s wealth and his European assets, on suspicions that he denied committing, and no final ruling was issued against him, according to published data. But the content of his interrogation, parts of which were published by the Daraj website, provided a clear picture of the nature of the relationship between the banker and the ruler.
According to what was published, Salameh was transferring money from his personal account at the Bank of Lebanon to the Al-Mawarid Bank account at the Central Bank, and then sending Khairuddin via phone or WhatsApp instructions to transfer the money to other people or arrange for it to be delivered to them. When Khair al-Din was asked about these operations, he was quoted as saying that he was “carrying out the governor’s instructions,” which is a phrase that does not constitute an admission of a crime, but it reveals a level of relationship that goes beyond the traditional dealing between a bank and a customer.
What is most telling is that the interrogation dealt with banking services provided at Salama’s request, including a transaction that Khairuddin acknowledged, according to what was published, that it would not have occurred in the same way with a regular customer. He also talked about opening accounts for members of the Salama family, companies, and those close to him, and about personally following some of them, while he was quoted as saying, “Such things happen in Lebanon,” which is perhaps the phrase that sums up the essence of the problem more than any number.
If the exception becomes normal when it comes to the appropriate influential person, and if the ruler can ask the head of a bank subject to his supervision to carry out transactions or follow up on the accounts of those close to him, then the issue is no longer a mere personal relationship. Here begins the “shadow of Riad Salama”, not as the shadow of one man, but rather as a method of work that made the boundaries between the supervisory authority and the banking interest more blurry than they should be.
Therefore, Marwan Khair al-Din’s importance in this story does not come from his political career or his wealth, but rather from his frequent appearances at points where money becomes pivotal for Salama. The governor’s accounts in his bank, transfers to the governor’s son during the beginning of the crisis, services carried out at a direct request, accounts opened for close associates, documents involved in Salameh’s defense before the French judiciary, and then after the fall of the governorship and the arrest, a new investigation into the $14 million that allowed Salameh to leave prison.
Each of these facts may have an independent legal or banking interpretation, and together they do not constitute a judicial ruling against Khairuddin, but they raise a legitimate question about the nature of the relationship that brought the two men together, and about the reason for the banker’s name continuing to appear at sensitive financial stations in the former ruler’s career even after the end of his term.
This question becomes more important when investigations, in Lebanon and France, gradually move from Riad Salama himself to the banking and financial environment that dealt with him. The issue is no longer just what the ruler did, but rather who are the people and institutions through whom the money passed, who carried out the operations, who provided the services, and who benefited from a relationship that was supposed to be governed by clear rules between the regulatory authority and the sector it monitors.
Marwan Khairuddin is not Riad Salama, and investigating him does not mean condemning him. He denies committing the violations attributed to him, but that does not eliminate the questions posed by the published facts. What is the size of the operations carried out at the direct request of the ruler? What services did Salama or those close to him receive that were not available to other clients? Why did the head of the Resource Bank remain present at various stages of the financial safety story, from accounts and transfers to judicial defense and then bail?
These are not questions looking for prior condemnation, but rather questions looking for an explanation for a relationship whose effects have been repeated in more than one file and at more than one stage. In a country where depositors and society as a whole paid the cost of the collapse of the financial system, it is not possible to understand what happened if the investigation remains confined to the person of Riad Salama alone, because one man does not build a financial system that lasted 30 years without banks, managers, intermediaries, and institutions that were part of his method of operation.
Riad Salama left the Bank of Lebanon on July 31, 2023, but the relationships that made his era did not leave with him. The accounts remained, the transfers remained, the documents remained, and the investigations remained, so the question is no longer when Riad Salama will fall, as the man fell from his position a long time ago, but rather when will the way money was governed in Lebanon fall, and when will everyone who granted an exception, provided a service, or executed a request become required to explain his role. Only then can it be said that the era of Riad Salama has truly ended. Until then, the ruler has left the Bank of Lebanon, but his shadow has not yet fallen.
