A new campaign to restore the usurped rights of the property owners and tenants in Beirut's central business district appropriated by Solidere was launched by Dr. Muhamad Mugraby, attorney at law.
On October 14, 1999, Dr. Mugraby gave a press conference in which he charged that a number of judges took large amounts of money, in each case the equivalent of over one hundred thousand US dollars, and in some cases in the hundreds of thousand, from CDR on behalf of Solidere, for the purpose of influencing their judgment. The total amount exceeded LL 5 billion between 1993 and 1997 according to the Court of Accounts and CDR itself. The scandal was uncovered when CDR, under orders from the Court of Accounts which could find no authority in the Lebanese budget for such spending, brought action against Solidere before a Beirut court to recover the money.
The judges headed special commissions to estimate the value of the rights appropriated by Solidere in violation of Article 15 of the Lebanese Constitution. The estimates came to no more than about 5% of the value.
Dr. Mugraby appealed to honest and God fearing judges to institute investigations immediately and called on the judges who took the money to stay home until a final decision is made as to their responsibility. He pointed out the bias of many of those judges, who, while on the pay of CDR/Solidere, and in addition to their bias in finding very low values for the appropriated rights, ruled consistently in favor of Solidere in their capacity as regular judges and unlawfully evicted people out of their homes and business premises. Both CDR and Solidere were controlled by former prime minister Hariri who personally ordered CDR to make the payments on behalf of Solidere.
In a meeting following the press conference, nearly one hundred landlords and tenants agreed to join hands in putting together a grass-roots coalition of the victims of Solidere to press for the restoration of rights, the undoing of Solidere, and the punishment of culprits.
The next meeting of the group is due to be held on Thursday, November 4, 1999, at 6:00 PM at Hotel Alexander, Ashrafieh, Beirut. All interested Lebanese citizens who support the aims of the coalition are being invited to attend.
For more information on the campaign to restore rights usurped by Solidere, the group may be contacted by E-mail on the following addresse: campaign@stopsolidere.org. For the full text of Dr. Mugraby's statement at the press conference visit the web site: www.stopsolidere.org.