Choucair: I Won't Drink Coffee or Tea with Financial Prosecutor

Telecommunications Minister Mohammed Choucair announced Friday that he will not meet with Financial Prosecutor Ali Ibrahim for a testimony over suspected wrongdoing in the telecom sector.

“I will not appear at the office of the financial prosecutor, neither for coffee nor for tea, and if he wants to meet I’m ready to host him at my house or office,” Choucair told reporters.

“Let them interrogate all telecom ministers who served between 1992 and today,” he added, lamenting that the file has been “politicized.”

“Let no one try to outsmart or intimidate us,” he said.

“Neither I nor Minister Jamal al-Jarrah will attend, and if he wants to come he is welcome,” Choucair went on to say.

Noting that Ibrahim needs a permission from the state prosecutor to summon ministers, Choucair stressed that he is “not a suspect.”

“I said it once and I reiterate: if he wants to interrogate ministers, he has to do that with all the former telecom ministers, from Butros Harb to Jamal al-Jarrah, Marwan Hamadeh, Nicolas Sehnaoui and others, whereas the selection of a number of ministers from them is a political issue. This is unacceptable and is rather a farce,” Choucair added.

Harb meanwhile announced that he has met with the financial prosecutor at the latter’s request.

“Judge Ibrahim asked me about the work mechanisms at the Telecom Ministry and the role and legal status of the OGERO authority and its legal relation with the Telecom Ministry, in addition to the work of mobile network operators and the modifications that were introduced to the contracts of operating the two mobile networks when they were extended in the year 2012,” the ex-minister added.