Lebanon has recalled Rami Adwan, its ambassador in Paris, targeted by an investigation in France for rape and intentional violence, announced Thursday the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "As a result of (...) the sending by the ministry (...) of a commission of inquiry to the embassy in Paris, it was decided to recall Ambassador Rami Adwan to the central administration, "said the Lebanese diplomacy in a statement.
Rami Adwan is under investigation for rape and intentional violence after complaints from two former employees of the embassy, said last Friday sources close to the investigation, confirming information from Mediapart.
Rami Adwan contests
The first woman, aged 31, filed a complaint in June 2022 for a rape committed, according to her account, to the police in May 2020 in the ambassador's private apartment. In her complaint, she states that she refused to have sex, screamed and cried. The young woman, employed as an editor, had already reported to the police in 2020 that Rami Adwan had hit her during an argument in his office, but without filing a complaint so as not to "break the life of this man", married and father.
The second woman, aged 28, who had also formed an intimate relationship with the diplomat shortly after his arrival as an intern in 2018, filed a complaint last February to denounce a series of physical assaults often committed after refusing to have sex.
The France on Monday requested the lifting of his immunity, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs considering that "faced with the gravity of the facts mentioned", it was "necessary to facilitate the work of the French justice".
As for Rami Adwan, he "denies any accusation of aggression in any form whatsoever: verbal, moral, sexual," according to his lawyer, Karim Beylouni.
