Hariri slams LBC chief, denies report of financial aid

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Former Lebanese PM and current Future Movement leader MP Saad Hariri denied in a statement on Thursday LBC TV reports that suggested he was on the brink of bankruptcy and that Saudi Arabia and Qatar granted him a huge financial aid package.

“These reports are completely false ,” Hariri said in the statement.

LBC reported on Wednesday that Hariri received “a four-billion-dollar gift” from the two gulf countries to resolve his financial crisis.

Hariri slammed the television station’s Managing Director Pierre al-Daher accusing him of holding several meetings with Syrian security chief Maj. Gen. Ali Mamlouk, who earlier this month was accused by the Lebanese Military Court of forming a group to commit crimes in Lebanon with former Minister Michel Samaha.

Hariri’s personal attack against Daher coincides with media reports which revealed that Daher met with Mamlouk several times in Damascus”

“We have long been aware that Daher decided to make libelous accusations against [me] and that he put himself at the service of the criminal regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.” Hariri said

On August 9, Lebanese security forces arrested former Information Minister Michel Samaha, who has close ties with Syria’s embattled regime, in a case linked to explosives.

On August 17 , Judge Sami Sader charged Samaha and two Syrian army officers, including Mamlouk with setting up an armed group to incite sectarian strife through “terror attacks.”

Hariri accused Daher of reaching an “unprecedented level of lack of journalistic ethics and fabricating rumors and lies.” He added: ” Daher’s fabricated report is similar a previously broadcast one by the same channel saying that Hariri is on the edge of bankruptcy.”

According to analysts Sheikh Daher, as he is commonly known, is a savvy and successful television executive with an apparent penchant for making enemies. His two most famous enemies are Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and Saudi Prince Walid bin Talal , who was listed by Forbes as the richest man in the middle east .

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