The Lebanese Foreign Ministry announced on Saturday that it would send an investigation team to Paris on suspicion of rape and deliberate violence by Lebanese Ambassador to France Rami Adwan.
Sources familiar with the file told AFP that France launched an investigation into the aggression following two complaints filed by two former embassy employees, confirming what was said in a previous media report.
The French government called on the Lebanese authorities to revoke Adwan’s diplomatic immunity so he could stand trial.
The Lebanese Foreign Ministry said in a statement: “It has been decided to urgently dispatch to the embassy in Paris a commission of inquiry, headed by the secretary-general of the ministry and the director of the inspectorate, to investigate the respective ambassador and listen to the statements of diplomats and administrators of the embassy.”
The statement added that the committee would meet “with anyone from the official French authorities to clarify that this was reported in the media and was not properly informed by the Lebanese Foreign Ministry through diplomatic channels.”
The first complainant, a 31-year-old former employee, filed a complaint in June 2022 alleging that she was raped in a private apartment owned by Ambassador Rami Adwan in May 2020, Mediapart reported, citing sources close to the investigation. .
In the complaint, she said that she had an “affair” with the ambassador, who used “psychological and physical violence” against her and insulted her daily.
The second applicant is 28 years old and filed a complaint in February last year, alleging that she had been subjected to a series of physical attacks, which were often the result of her refusal to have sexual relations.
She confirmed that Adwan tried to run her over with his car after an altercation on the sidelines of a peace forum in Caen, western France, in September.
And the French Foreign Ministry, in a comment to Agence France-Presse on Friday evening, indicated that “in view of the seriousness of the aforementioned facts, we consider it necessary that the Lebanese authorities lift the immunity of the Lebanese ambassador in Paris in order to facilitate the work of the French judicial system.”
This Article Lebanon Dispatches Team to Paris to Probe Ambassador’s Alleged Role in Rape and Violence was first Published on World Weekly News
Source: Lebanon Dispatches Team to Paris to Probe Ambassador’s Alleged Role in Rape and Violence
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