(BEIRUT, LEBANON) — Ex-Jumblatt aide and businessman Bahij Abou Hamze was sentenced to two years in jail and ordered to pay $3.45 million on Friday over charges of breach of trust and embezzlement from the Safa football team, sources told Beirut-based newspaper, The Daily Star.
The decision marks the first sentence against Abou Hamze, the former head of the board of trustees for the football team. Abu Hamze is also the husband of TV personality Mona Abou Hamze, most notable for “Talk of the Town” on MTV Lebanon.
Abu Hamzeh’s lawyers have been petitioning for charges against the defendant to be dropped. The case was filed by the chairman of the Safa football team Issam Sayegh, who is currently representing the team.
Abu Hamzeh was earlier charged with impersonating Sayegh by forging documents and using counterfeit papers, but that case was dismissed, a judicial source told The Daily Star.
Abu Hamzeh still faces several other charges filed by Jumblatt.
The lawsuits are the culmination of a dramatic deterioration of relations between Jumblatt and Abu Hamzeh, who used to run Jumlatt’s real estate endeavors and managed his private properties for more than two decades.
Abu Hamzeh’s family has consistently worked for the Jumblatt family over the past century.
In one of the lawsuits filed by Jumblatt, he accused Abu Hamzeh and business partner Hussein Bdeir of selling him a piece of land that did not actually exist.
Abu Hamzeh is a chemical engineer and a Middle East agent for the U.S. pharmaceutical company Upjohn, Abu Hamzeh lived in Paris before moving to Lebanon in 1987 at the request of Jumblatt in order to manage the PSP chief’s companies.
He is also the former head of the Association of Oil Importing Companies and served as the head of Safa’s board of trustees.