BEIRUT: Prominent businessman Bahij Abu Hamzeh, once a close aide of Walid Jumblatt, was arrested Monday on charges of embezzlement filed by a football team sponsored by the Progressive Socialist Party leader, judicial sources told The Daily Star.
Ghassan Oweidat, the first investigative judge of Beirut, questioned Abu Hamzeh and issued an arrest warrant against him over a lawsuit filed by Issam Sayegh, the chairman of the Safa football team. The lawsuit accused Abu Hamzeh of embezzlement and breach of trust.
Abu Hamzeh was arrested shortly after exiting Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut Monday. He was summoned by the judge earlier but did not show up.
The lawsuit is the culmination of a dramatic deterioration in relations between Jumblatt and Abu Hamzeh, a prominent businessman who ran the Druze leader’s real estate endeavors and managed his private properties for more than two decades. Abu Hamzeh’s family has consistently worked for the powerful Jumblatt family over the past century.
A chemical engineer and a Middle East agent for the U.S. pharmaceutical company Upjohn, Abu Hamzeh lived in Paris before moving to Lebanon in 1987 at the request of Jumblatt in order to manage the PSP chief’s companies.
He is also the former head of the Association of Oil Importing Companies and served as the head of Safa’s board of trustees.
But relations between Jumblatt and Abu Hamzeh cooled significantly last year, leading the Druze leader to relieve his former associate of his duties and file two lawsuits against him.
In one lawsuit, Jumblatt accuses Abu Hamzeh and Hussein Bdeir, a Lebanese businessman, of selling him a piece of land that never existed.
Jumblatt said he was the victim of an “organized fraud,” and accused Abu Hamzeh and Bdeir of taking advantage of the fact that he was busy with politics and social obligations in order to dupe him. Bdeir has categorically dismissed the accusations. Abu Hamzeh has never made a public statement on the matter, and has said he prefers to let the judiciary handle the case.
Sources familiar with the issue told The Daily Star that Abu Hamzeh proposed to resolve the case with Jumblatt by paying him a settlement fee, but that the PSP leader turned down the offer.
The judicial sources said Abu Hamzeh could remain in custody for up to two months before his lawyers could secure an order for his release on bail. Bahij Abu Mujahid, Abu Hamzeh’s lawyer, could not immediately be reached by The Daily Star.
Abu Hamzeh’s wife, Mona, is the host of entertainment program Talk of the Town, which airs once a week on Lebanese TV channel MTV.
Mona Abu Hamzeh did not appear during the ceremony to celebrate MTV’s fifth anniversary Monday evening, of which she was scheduled to be its host. Appearing in her place instead was TV presenter Wissam Breidi. She tweeted a photo of her with her husband and two kids shortly after news of his arrest broke.
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