In our Friday, October 21st edition, we ran a story under the banner “Novafone woe: US Terrorism Sanctions Shadow Liberian businessmen”, in which we reported that telecoms operator Novafone and the following businessmen namely; George Abejaoudi, Bilal Abrahim and Khalil Abejaoudi all of whom are Lebanese nationals, are associates or have ties to Ali Youssef Charara, a Lebanese financier who was placed on the U.S Department of Treasury’s assets freeze list in January 2016 on suspicion of financing Hezbollah terrorist activities.
We therefore want to categorically state that after a subsequent and deep investigation into the matter, we found out that the tip on which we based the above mentioned story was incorrect and baseless.
Thus, we wish to make it clear that we have not been able to identify any connection whatsoever between or among Mr. Ali Yousseff Charara on one hand and Novafone, George Abejaoudi, Khalil Abejaoudi and Bilal Abejaoudi, on another.
Upon realizing this, we moved to remove the story from our website and hereby offer this clarification which we hope will bring closure to the matter. Front Page Africa remains uncompromisingly committed to the unadulterated ethics of journalism in Liberia.