Beirut Time Responds to Samara Al-Qazzi’s Article

On September 18, the Special Investigation Commission at Banque du Liban issued a decision to freeze the accounts and assets of eleven individuals and two companies, including journalist Samara Al-Qazzi. This is where the controversy began, everything that followed has been a narrative unsupported by facts.

In a lengthy article, Al-Qazzi portrayed the incident as a carefully orchestrated operation targeting her. She suggested that documents had been forged or manipulated to include her name, and accused influential parties of infiltrating the commission to protect suspicious financial interests. Her accusations also extended to banking, judicial, and political officials.

Allegations of forgery are serious claims, not matters of opinion, and require substantiation. Yet Al-Qazzi’s article offered no documentation to support them.

She also brought Beirut Time into her narrative, accusing the platform of publishing a report linking her to money-laundering operations involving V Invest and Stephanie Saliba. However, a review of Beirut Time’s archives tells a different story: in June, the platform published an investigation into the company and suspicious financial transfers connected to the Salameh family. Samara Al-Qazzi’s name did not appear in the report. How, then, can a platform be accused of publishing something it never reported?

The document Beirut Time referred to was issued by the Special Investigation Commission and signed by its Secretary-General, Abdel Hafiz Mansour. It addresses Al-Qazzi’s posts on X, identifying them as a key factor behind the decision. In these posts, she repeatedly referred to American entities, including the U.S. Department of the Treasury, while making serious accusations against Banque du Liban. This is what the published document states.

Al-Qazzi also alleged that Beirut Time was paid to attack her, but offered no supporting material for that claim either. Such a serious accusation cannot rest on insinuation alone.

Beirut Time respects every journalist’s right to defend themselves and remains open to publishing any response supported by documentation. However, a defence should be grounded in facts, not in a series of accusations directed at banks, the judiciary, politicians, and the media.

  Those who champion the fight against corruption and accountability must be held to the same standard: no allegations without proof