Lebanon recalls France envoy after rape accusation

Lebanon's foreign ministry said on Thursday it was recalling its ambassador to France, Rami Adwan, after an investigation was opened into allegations of rape and intentional violence by the envoy.

Published: 8 June 2023 16:11 CEST

Lebanon recalls France envoy after rape accusation

Illustration photo by Robin UTRECHT / ANP / AFP

“Following the circumstances surrounding the case of the Lebanese ambassador to France… it has been decided to recall ambassador Rami Adwan,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Adwan is being investigated in France following complaints by two former embassy employees. He has diplomatic immunity but could face trial if Lebanon agrees to lift it.

Lebanon this week sent an investigation team to the embassy in Paris to question the ambassador and hear statements from embassy staff.

Thursday’s foreign ministry statement said the decision to recall Adwan also came “in light of” the dispatch of that team to France.

It said a charge d’affaires was appointed as head of mission on Wednesday.

A first former embassy employee, aged 31, had filed a complaint in June 2022 for a rape she says was committed in May 2020 in the ambassador’s private apartment, sources close to the investigation told AFP earlier, confirming a report by the Mediapart news site.

According to the complaint, she had a relationship with the ambassador, who carried out “psychological and physical violence with daily humiliations”.

The second woman, aged 28, made a complaint last February after what she said was a series of physical attacks after she turned down sexual relations.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.