Suspending Al-Jammal Trust Bank for financing Hezbollah activities
Beirut – North-Press Agency
Layal Khoroubi
The United States continues to impose sanctions on Lebanon to pressure Hezbollah at the height of the Iran-US conflict.
The latest U.S. strike on Lebanon’s banks was to put “Jammal Trust Bank” on the terrorism list last week for providing financial and banking services to affiliated associations with Hezbollah as Qard al-Hasan, the Martyr Foundation and the executive council of Hezbollah.
Until now, the mechanism by which the Central Bank of Lebanon is going to deal with this issue has not been materialized, if they would merge it with another bank, as happened with the Lebanese Canadian Bank, whose assets and liabilities were sold to another bank in 2011 after the separation of accounts that the Americans accused of laundering money for Hezbollah.
At the same time, a banking source suggested that self-liquidation is the only solution for the bank, because it has practically ended up after being placed on the US OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) regulations.
The source described the bank’s listing on terrorism regulations as banking machiavilla, stressing that Al-Jammal Bank in 2003 had closed the accounts of the mentioned institutions in the decision after they were banned by the United States.
Thus, these actions against the bank are a moral blow and a political message.
Regarding the banking process, the source explained to North-Press that any bank intends to buy liabilities and assets must obtain a US guarantee not to be included in the same list or accused of helping to finance terrorism, a guarantee that is difficult to obtain.
Regarding the consequences of the US decision on the Lebanese banking sector, the source warns of the dangers of listing banks each after another on the OFAC regulations which will shake the international confidence in Lebanon, specifically the Gulf depositors, because the suspicion of financing terrorism will apply to the Lebanese banking sector as a whole.”
The banking source expressed his belief that sanctions will not stop, where today a bank owned by a Shiite businessman was liquidated while three other Shiite-owned banks remain in Lebanon and are not neutralized from the possibilities of US sanctions as long as the US goal is to strangle the hostile environment of Hezbollah.
Al-Jammal Bank was funding modest agricultural and commercial projects in the southern and remote Bekaa regions (Hezbollah strongholds), and part of the Shiite expatriates were depositing their money in the bank.
While Washington’s inclusion of the bank on the terrorism list has opened a series of speculation about the fate of depositors’ money, and the future of the 400 employ who were living with their families from the bank.