LONDON: The family of Hezbollah financier Mohammed Ja’far Qasir has been living in extravagance amid a severe and prolonged economic crisis in Lebanon, a report exposed on Thursday.
The prominent Hezbollah leader, who reportedly helps fund Hezbollah’s terrorist activities by selling Iranian oil, has been using the wealth he accumulated through access to the huge funds of the Iran-backed party to finance the indulgent lifestyle of his wife and daughters, Hezbollah defectors told Sawt Beirut International.
The sources claim Qasir’s wife, Mahasin Murtada, influences her husband’s decisions and intervenes even in secret matters of the party’s affairs, such as money and arms smuggling.
Murtada, according to the same sources, hardly spends time in her country, Lebanon, and in the summer of 2022, she and her daughters spent a whole month in Europe, shopping at luxury brands.
One of her daughters posted a photo on social media carrying a Valentino purse worth some $2,000 — 10 times the average income in Lebanon.
Fatima Ayoub, Murtada’s daughter, is married to Mohammed Qasim Al-Bazzal, a key financier for Hezbollah, and flagrantly shares on social media photos of her overpriced outfits, indifferent to the economic crisis in Lebanon.
The spendings of Qasir’s wife and daughters are not limited to clothes and trips to Europe but also extend to cosmetic procedures and plastic surgeries, insider Hezbollah sources revealed to Sawt Beirut International.
The extravagant lifestyle of Qasir’s family is common among the households of other Hezbollah leaders.
Previously leaked accounts revealed the level of corruption and nepotism among Hezbollah’s higher circles. While the party spares no effort in undermining and dividing state institutions and obstructing any attempt to advance them, Hezbollah’s leadership maintains a dividing line between their life of opulence and the Lebanese people’s life of poverty and suffering.
