Lebanon’s ambassador to France in turmoil

Officials from the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs are expected in Paris to investigate the behavior of the ambassador of the country of cedar in France, Rami Adwan, targeted by two complaints of rape and violence, revealed Friday, June 2 by Mediapart. The dispatch of the investigators was announced after the French foreign ministry requested the lifting of the immunity of the Lebanese diplomat. The Quai d’Orsay justified this request in view of “the seriousness of the facts mentioned” and in the concern of “facilitate the work of French justice”explained a French diplomatic source to Agence France-Presse.

The accusations against Rami Adwan, 47 years old and in post in Paris since 2017, come from two young women who worked under his orders at the Lebanese embassy, ​​located in the 16^e arrondissement of Paris, and who maintained an intimate relationship with him. The first, 31, filed a complaint in June 2022 for a rape, committed in May 2020 according to her account to the police, in the private apartments of the ambassador. The complainant also reported physical and psychological abuse, including a blow to the head that her superior allegedly administered to her with a marble clipboard during an argument.

Asked by MediapartMr. Adwan denounces “charges that make no sense” and evokes a relationship that would have “completed in a very conflictual climate”. Regarding the alleged rape, he claims that the sexual intercourse was consensual. “This complaint for rape which comes more than two years after the facts (…) questioning the sincerity of his approach”, did he declare.

A second young woman, aged 28, filed a complaint in February 2023 to denounce a series of physical attacks. In front of the police, the complainant notably described a scene, dating back to December 2022, during which the ambassador, who arrived at her home drunk, allegedly tried to suffocate her in her mattress, after she refused sex. . A charge denied again by Mr. Adwan.

A relative of Gebran Bassil

In Lebanon, which remained aloof from the #metoo movement, where the reputation of the powerful is usually protected – including in cases of sexual violence – the media unusually seized on these revelations: from the evening of June 2 , they were on the menu of the television news of the Al-Jedid channel, one of the most watched in the country. The daily Nidaa Al Watan emphasized the shock felt by “Lebanese Public Opinion and the Diaspora”. Many Lebanese deplore that the image of their homeland, somewhat damaged by the explosion of the port of Beirut in the summer of 2020, and the economic slump in which the country is plunged, is tarnished a little more by those same who are supposed to defend this image on the international scene.

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