BEIRUT: Prominent Lebanese businessman Kassim Tajeddine was detained Monday while leaving Casablanca airport in Morocco. The details surrounding Tajeddine’s detention remain vague, but the arrest is believed to be a result of the businessman’s alleged financial ties to Hezbollah.
Neither the U,S, government, which categorizes Tajeddine as a specially designated global terrorist, nor the Moroccan government has released statements regarding the detention.
Members of the Tajeddine family declined to comment on the matter when contacted by The Daily Star, citing the sensitive nature of the situation.
“Whatever the background and details of the arrest of Hajj Kassim Tajeddine, logic dictates that the government inquires about him,” Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt tweeted Monday.
Jumblatt and the Tajeddine family had previously squabbled over the latter’s development projects in the Chouf, long considered the PSP’s heartland.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control added Tajeddine to its sanctions list in May 2009. Then in 2010, businesses linked to Tajeddine and his two brothers, Ali and Hussein Tajeddine, were also added. This included Tajco, a company with offices in Gambia, Sierra Leone and Lebanon, as well as several subsidiaries, and Ovlas Trading S.A., with offices in Lebanon and the U.K., as well as subsidiaries.
Additional branches of Tajco in Ghana were added to the sanctions list in April 2012.
The Tajeddine family reportedly owns and operates a multibillion-dollar business conglomerate, active in much of Africa and the Middle East. The family works in a range of sectors, including trade, agriculture, real estate and food distribution.
In Lebanon, the Tajeddines are mostly involved in real estate ventures, particularly along the country’s largely privatized coastline.
Multiple reports as well as the U.S. sanctions list have previously asserted that the family has consistently diverted sizeable sums – in the millions of dollars – to Hezbollah, which is itself designated a terrorist entity by the U.S. government.
Last month, OFAC added two Lebanese nationals and four entities under their control to the sanctions list, asserting that they had been providing assistance to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
