Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer Beirut: Minister of Telecommunications Boutros Harb confronted
several new challenges on Friday after the Financial Prosecutor, Judge
Ali Ebrahim, indicted three high-level officials at the state-owned
Ogero telecommunications company in the ongoing internet scandal, and
after the MTV television chairman and CEO, Michel Gabriel Al Murr,
accused him of lying.
Harb, who famously condemned General
Prosecutor Judge Hatem Madi in 2013 and threatened to take him to court
after the latter allegedly protected a presumed assassin (nothing
happened on that front since that time), spent three hours on Thursday
evening on the LBC Kalam Al NAS talk show with Marcel Ganem to
display his dazzling perspectives. It was unclear whether he succeeded
to salvage the ongoing Ogero scandal.
In fact, despite the broadly
watched television programme that was a rare exercise in spin, Judge
Ebrahim did not waste much time and indicted three officials over
“negligence that led to squandering public funds and evading taxes by
allowing some people to set up unlicensed internet in the country”. He
also referred the case to Beirut’s First Investigative Judge Gassan
Oueidat, a procedure that was important because the indictment meant
that a trial would now be held very soon, especially after Minister Harb
granted the judiciary permission to pursue Ogero director-general Abdul
Moneim Yousif (and two other high-ranking officials) even if the latter
was out of the country.
The three individuals are linked to the
country’s illegal internet networks scandal and, in addition to Yousuf,
included IT director Toufic Chebaro and internet Division director Galeb
Smaira.
For their part, State Prosecutor Samir Hammoud, who has
been seeking to question Yousuf, Chebaro and Smaira, and Mount Lebanon
Investigative Judge Rami Abdullah, who extended the deadline for Yousuf
to testify in the case, received lukewarm support from the minister.
Abdullah gave Yousuf until May 23 to appear in court although few
believed that the fugitive would return to Beirut from France any time
soon.
On Thursday evening, Harb denied that Yousuf had fled the country and
claimed that the accused was not required to attend the session because
the telecoms minister had not given the judiciary permission to
question him, though he seems to have changed his mind after fresh
revelations were revealed about Yousuf’s Paris heart attack.
Indeed,
Yousuf apparently produced a medical report from a physician, posted on
the LBC webpage with Harb’s authorisation, although it contained
serious irregularities.
“Boutros Harb’s comments are suspicious,”
asserted the MTV television chairman and CEO Al Murr, because the
medical report was predated by five days; not issued by the cardiologist
who performed the operation; provided a blank six-month rest
prescription (if necessary); and hand-delivered it to Yousuf’s daughter.
The extensive Parisian leave may create additional problems although
few contemplated which direction that may go.
Interestingly, Al
Murr spoke for over 11 minutes on top of Friday evening’s prime news
bulletin — an eternity in airtime — to refute Harb and displayed several
documents, including a report attributed to the Lebanese Army, which
raised serious questions about the minister’s comments on the illegal
internet networks. He affirmed that Harb was determined to cover up the
Ogero internet scandal for political reasons and that the minister’s
bravura to expose four illegal internet stations in the mountainous
regions of Al Dinniyyah, Ayun Al Siman, Faqra and Zaarur, was pure
politics aimed at muzzling the station and its owners. In addition to
MTV — the highest-ranking television network throughout the Arab World
that was shut down by Syrian forces in 2002 but resumed broadcasts in
2009 — the Al-Murr family owned a major resort at Zaarur where one of
these internet facilities were apparently located.
To date, eight
individuals were arrested and several others were charged in absentia.
On Thursday, Harb repeated the mantra that Israel was using these
set-ups to spy on Lebanon although the Lebanese Army — presumably the
primary target — remained silent on the matter. Illegal providers are
accused of buying bandwidth from Turkey and Israel and selling it in
Lebanon below official rates, though preliminary investigations revealed
that Yousuf and others were part of the illegal activities that netted
substantial returns and denied the State sorely needed revenues.
Lebanon
earns between $1.2 billion (Dh4.41 billion) and 1.5 billion each year
through the Ministry of Telecommunications monopoly even if internet
services rank among the slowest and most expensive in the world.
