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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Rana Qoleilat claims innocence in TV interview |
| 2006-03-30 |
| Rana Qoleilat, the Al-Madina Bank executive wanted on suspicion of involvement in a banking scandal, said she was innocent of all allegations in her first media appearance Tuesday. The fugitive alleged from her Brazilian prison cell that her ex-husband Adnan Abu Ayyash paid Syria's former intelligence chief in Lebanon Rustom Ghazaleh to have her thrown in jail. In an interview with Brazil's Globo Television, Qoleilat said: "Rustom Ghazaleh was extorting money from rich and influential Lebanese like me." A transcript of the interview was published in Lebanese daily Al-Mustaqbal Tuesday. "I was jailed because I didn't pay Ghazaleh. It was my ex-husband who paid him to put me in jail," she added. Qoleilat blamed Al-Madina's collapse on Ayyash, who she claims withdrew $490 million to invest in the stock market. "That is when all the troubles began," she said. The couple were married for 10 years from 1992. When Ayyash was unable to return the money, Qoleilat and her family "rushed to his aid" so that he could reimburse the bank's depositors, she added. "When the scandal broke, they started accusing me, when I didn't steal anything. I didn't need to steal because [Ayyash] gave me complete freedom over his private accounts," she said. "He is using his influence to keep me in prison to humiliate me," she said, adding "he threw me in a pit full of rats and garbage." |
| Posted by:Fred |