A U.S. district court has ruled against four Lebanese individuals, including a former minister, finding them liable for fraud, torture and civil conspiracy and ordering them to pay $35 million in damages, for orchestrating the kidnapping and torture of a Lebanese-American couple.
Speaking to OCCRP about the verdict from the Florida court, Lara Samaha, a U.S. green card holder, said the couple filed in the U.S. because “the justice system in Lebanon is so corrupt it is impossible to obtain justice.”
According to the default final judgment seen by OCCRP, a binding court order issued when defendants fail to respond to a lawsuit, the court ordered Gebran Bassil—a sitting member of parliament, Lebanon’s former foreign minister, and the son-in-law of former President Michel Aoun—to pay millions in damages, along with three co-defendants.
“I feel justice has been served after 7 years in court and more than 300 court filings,” Lara Samaha told OCCRP. She confirmed that there will be a follow up on a related lawsuit in Lebanon, though she declined to detail the next steps.
The Florida court heard that the defendants kidnapped and tortured Lara and her husband Elie Samaha, a U.S.-Lebanese citizen, to force them to dismiss a lawsuit they had raised in Florida in 2017, against Lebanese government officials who had stymied Lara’s efforts to obtain her inheritance. The couple alleged to the court that Bassil had worked to ensure the dismissal in order to protect one of those officials. The court found that Bassil and the other defendants had lured the couple to Lebanon under the pretext of a settlement discussion of the inheritance dispute.
Bassil’s office denied any connection to the case or the parties involved. In a statement issued on October 16 after reports of the ruling, his office said Bassil has no relationship with the parties involved and objected to what it called a selective and fragmented presentation of the legal proceedings. The office claimed that the Florida court had previously dismissed a lawsuit in March 2023 for lack of jurisdiction, and that the Lebanese judiciary had issued a ruling in Bassil’s favor against Elie and Lara Samaha.
Commenting on the statement, Lara dismissed Bassil’s office claims, saying that what matters is the US court orders and final judgement.
The office did not say whether or not Bassil plans to challenge the Florida court judgement.
The couple’s legal battles began in 2015, when they filed a lawsuit in Beirut alleging that politically-connected family members had stolen millions of dollars Lara was due to inherit. With that case delayed but still active, they filed a parallel suit in the U.S. on November 17, 2017, seeking to recover the inheritance.
In 2019, the couple traveled to Lebanon hoping to settle the dispute. That, they say, is when their ordeal began.
Lara Samaha told Daraj, OCCRP’s partner, that she and her husband were detained —she for 11 days and he for nine. The legal complaint alleged that Lebanese security forces detained the couple upon their arrival in Beirut. She alleged that each spent part of that time in an underground military prison, where they were denied food, medicine and light. She also alleged they were forced to withdraw their lawsuits in both the U.S. and Lebanon.
Bassil, who heads the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), an influential Christian party in Lebanon allied with the Shiite movement Hezbollah, has been under U.S. sanctions since November 2020 for playing a major role in corruption in the country.
Bassil’s office did not respond to OCCRP’s request for comment.
Source: OCCRP · 2026-10-23