Diplomatic embarrassment for Lebanon: The country's ambassador to France is being investigated on suspicion of raping and assaulting two former embassy employees. Paris is now demanding that his immunity be lifted.
The first woman (31) filed a complaint against Ambassador Rami Adwan in June last year. According to her, the rape took place in May 2020 in the ambassador's private apartment. The AFP news agency, whose reporters reviewed the complaint, reports that the woman made it clear to Adwan that she did not want sex, screamed and cried. That same year, the woman reported to police that Adwan had beaten her during an argument in the office. However, she decided not to file a complaint against him "so as not to ruin his life and marriage": the complainant wrote that she had an affair with him at the time. She said the relationship was also "accompanied by physical and mental violence."
The second complainant (28) also had a relationship with the ambassador that began shortly after she arrived at the embassy as an apprentice in 2018. She filed her complaint last February after she said Adwan assaulted her when she did not comply with his demands for sex. To make matters worse, the woman claims that the ambassador tried to run her over with his car after an argument on the sidelines of an international forum in France. Two months earlier, the woman claims, the ambassador had tried to strangle her with a pillow.
The ambassador's lawyer, Karim Bieloni, denied the allegations. "My client denies the allegations of assault in any form: verbal, mental or physical," he told AFP. "From 2022 to 2018, he had relationships with both women who had their ups and downs."
According to a source familiar with the details of the case, the police closed the case. The ambassador also enjoys diplomatic immunity, but the French Foreign Ministry is demanding that Beirut remove it to allow for an investigation. "Given the seriousness of the allegations, we believe that the Lebanese authorities should lift the immunity of the ambassador in Paris in order to assist the French justice system," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement over the weekend.
Beirut's foreign ministry declined to respond to AFP's request for comment. "Minister Abdullah Bou Habib will express his position at the appropriate time and publicly," the statement said.
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