Exclusive: Lebanese judges "piqued" with Justice Minister as Iraq makes unannounced contribution

Shafaq News/ Iraq offered three hundred thousand dollars in financial aid to Lebanese judges, four Iraqi and Lebanese sources revealed on Saturday.

Earlier in January, 2022, a delegation headed by Lebanon's Minister of Justice, Henry Khoury, and head of the Supreme Judicial Council, Sohail Abboud, held a series of meetings with senior Iraqi officeholders, including caretaker Prime Minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, and Chief Justice, Faiq Zeidan.

The sources revealed that the Lebanese delegation appealed for a financial grant to help the Lebanese judges make ends meet amid the stifling financial and monetary crisis battering the country since late 2019.

In March, a delegation from the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council handed the Lebanese side a "financial grant" during an official visit to the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

According to sources from inside the Lebanese judicial system, the financial grant amounted to 300 thousand dollars. A third source said that every single member of the Lebanese judicial body, nearly 600 judges, was offered a ten million Lebanese pounds (400$) financial aid.

The Lebanese delegation, according to sources, appealed for a total of three million dollars in add-ons to the monthly salaries. However, Shafaq News Agency was unable to confirm these allegations from an official source.

The three-hundred-dollars grant was offered as an expression of solidarity from the judges of Iraq with their counterparts in the country plunged into one of the worst economic crises in modern history, but the value had never been made public.

Back then, Minister Khoury said on the anonymous contribution of the Iraqi Judges, "the aid falls into the category of individual pursuits organized by members of the Iraqi judicial body who took the initiative to uphold their colleagues in the Lebanese judicial body."

The sources said that Minister Khoury and Co's visit to Baghdad was "unfortunate in terms of the format, content, and build-up of the delegation."

The Iraqi prime minister himself, who took the initiative to dispatch fuel shipments to run the virtually unserviceable Lebanese power plant, was "dissatisfied" with course of the visit.

An informed source said that the members of the Lebanese judicial body had a bit of "pique" with Khoury and Abboud's deeds despite being grateful for their Iraqi colleagues' initiative.