Jaber, Hajjar and Rasamny inspect airport after $2.5M seized

Finance Minister Yassine Jaber, Interior Minister Ahmad al-Hajjar and Public Works and Transport Minister Fayez Rasamny have made a joint inspection visit to Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport, days after $2.5 million in cash were seized in the possession of a Lebanese man coming from Turkey.

The National News Agency said the three ministers inspected the security and logistic measures at the facility.

They also met with the airport’s security and civilian chiefs, discussing the administrative and technical needs for facilitating the movement of incoming and outbound passengers, enhancing security measures, and activating baggage and shipment scanners.

The three ministers also toured the airport’s various sections with the aim of devising an “integrated work plan.”

Airport authorities have recently arrested Mohammad H. who arrived aboard a Turkish Pegasus plane. The young man is being investigated about the source of the money and its destination, amid reports that the cash was destined for Hezbollah.

Israel had claimed that Iranian envoys and Turkish citizens had been smuggling money from Tehran and Istanbul to Beirut.

Lebanese authorities later suspended inbound and outbound flights to Iran indefinitely after the United States, which helped broker a November 27 Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire, warned Lebanon that Israel might shoot the planes down.

The move prompted protests from supporters of Hezbollah, who blocked the road to the country's only international airport, while Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem said the government's decision to halt flights from Iran was "implementing an Israeli order."