Emirati billionaire Al Habtoor says he is afraid to set foot in Lebanon

By Maha El Dahan and Jana Choukeir

DUBAI (Reuters) - United Arab Emirates billionaire Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor, who this week scrapped his investments in Lebanon, said the country was still not safe and that he had been threatened with being "slaughtered and killed" last year.

Al Habtoor has not visited Lebanon - a thriving banking hub dubbed the Switzerland of the Middle East before its ruinous civil war erupted in 1975 - in almost two decades, and told Reuters a threat to his life had caused him to abandon plans to launch a media venture in Beirut in 2024.

"I have been threatened, not threatened only with a slap or something. If that was the case it doesn’t matter, but I was threatened to be slaughtered and killed," he said, speaking by Zoom from a hotel he owns in Budapest.

The threat, made via social media by an anonymous individual, led Al Habtoor to file a lawsuit, which he won in a Lebanese court, he said.

Al Habtoor had previously expressed optimism that a new government being formed could chart a fresh course for Lebanon, which has been battered since 2019 by a deep economic crisis and became a battleground between Israel and Hezbollah in 2024.

But this week he said he was pulling out, citing instability and the continued overbearing influence of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shi'ite Muslim group that has in recent years been a dominant political force.

The United Arab Emirates and other Sunni Gulf states had spurned the country for years because of the Iranian influence, although Al Habtoor had held on to his investments.

The UAE reopened its embassy in Lebanon this year, more than three years after shutting it. However, Al Habtoor said the Gulf state had not yet given the green light for its citizens to visit the country.

Lebanon faces what the World Bank says is one of the world's worst economic crises since the mid-19th century, after decades of corruption, waste and unsustainable financial policies.

That has been compounded by the destruction caused by the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, though a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, initially set to end this month, has been extended to Feb. 18.

Asked whether he would reconsider his decision on further investment in the country, where talks on forming a new government are under way, Al Habtoor said if it could offer safety and protection, then "definitely I will go back".

"Not one penny can be invested unless there is security and safety," he said.

(Reporting by Maha El Dahan and Jana Choukeir; Editing by Michael Georgy and Alex Richardson)