European delegation ends 1st round of questioning in Lebanon

By BASSEM MROUE
Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) — Judicial officials say a European legal team has wrapped up the first round of questioning of Lebanese bankers and current and former Central Bank officials in Beirut. The questioning is part of a probe on money laundering linked to Lebanon’s Central Bank governor. Lebanon is grappling with the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history that has plunged more than 75% of the tiny nation’s population of 6 million into poverty. The European delegation arrived in Beirut earlier this month to interrogate embattled Central Bank governor, Riad Salameh, and more than two dozen other people, some of them his close associates, in a European money laundering investigation of some $330 million.