In his first interview since being charged in an internet scandal, MTV CEO Michel El Murr Monday issued a scathing attack on Ogero and the telecommunications minister as he defended himself and his company. “We are fighting on two fronts,” Murr told The Daily Star. “The first is corruption across all sectors and across all government divisions. The second is Hezbollah and its arms.”

“These two interests converged in the Telecommunications Ministry, where there is a corrupt individual called Abdel-Moneim Youssef,” the media mogul lambasted. Murr’s allegations center on Youssef, the head of state-owned telecommunications company Ogero, and on Telecommunication Minister Boutros Harb.

The MTV boss has been under fire since Lebanon’s Financial Prosecutor issued charges against him on Sept. 20 for embezzlement connected to the ongoing illegal internet scandal. Murr strongly denies any wrongdoing and claims the charges are politically motivated for speaking out against Hezbollah and corruption in the government.

In March this year, Harb revealed that several illegal internet providers were operating in the country. The minister claimed these networks were a national security threat due to what he said was definite Israeli infiltration. Several senior officials and businesspeople have been implicated in the ongoing investigations into how the networks were set up and operated. Ogero has also been at the center of proceedings.

“I got information from the Telecommunications Ministry that there was a case being prepared against us [MTV],” Murr said. “Their interests aligned against us, including that of other TV stations. The ministry has a weapon in its hands.

They give sponsorships to shows on these TV stations and other things. This is how they are able to contract three or four big media platforms to attack us.” The MTV boss pointed to news reports aired on both New TV and LBC - two stations Murr claims “benefit from the Telecommunications Ministry directly and indirectly” - about the relay station owned by MTV in Zaarour.

“These reports were based on an assumption, saying ‘this proves to us that there was an illegal station’ because they found a cable and batteries,” Murr said, adding that the equipment at the site proved nothing about illegality or providing an internet service, but led to months of court cases. The allegations of running an illegal internet station that may have facilitated Israeli spying resulted in MTV being referred to all five branches of the judiciary. Murr explained that MTV was later cleared of all charges.

“The financial prosecutor, the military prosecutor, the state prosecutor, Army Intelligence, and the Cybercrime Bureau - all five of these judicial apparatuses determined we were innocent. So we maintained our campaign against the Telecommunications Ministry and Youssef,” Murr explained.

After MTV was cleared of the allegations in court, Murr said the ministry concocted new accusations against them. He said the fresh charges claimed MTV was using technology to circumvent traditional telephone lines, depriving the state treasury of revenue.

“The [new] charge against us is that we have an E1 service. The telecommunications minister to this day says there are a hundred [lines], but we are only using 30,” he said.

An E1 service enables routing multiple calls through a single line simultaneously, allowing calls from an extension within a company to be routed via the internet rather than via a traditional call, regardless of location of the two callers.

“From these lines we are charged with making $60 million … they considered that all the communication that was going on in MTV was international telecommunications from abroad. But it was ‘Voice Over IP,’ which means that if you are abroad … instead of making an international call and paying the tariffs you call for free through the internet,” he said.

Murr insists there’s nothing illegal about the systems and says that popular voice messaging services like Skype and WhatsApp utilize the same technology.

“The systems we have in place are legal and we have paid for them completely. We even have the receipts to show it,” he insisted.

Murr repeatedly linked the legal cases against MTV to corruption in the ministry and Ogero, which he said had lost the Lebanese people “tens of millions of dollars.”

“The transgressions and irregularities in the internet and telecommunications issue are so large that you
cannot know how much was lost,” he said. “Imagine, with everything that is going on with Youssef and the hundreds of millions of dollars being embezzled at this moment. But, none of the officials are yet to be held accountable,” Murr said.

Murr highlighted specific areas he said illustrated corruption, including Ogero limiting specific capacity for internet providers and users and then charging money to increase bandwidth allocation. “Because, as the rest of the things with the state go, you close the faucet and then … you give that guy $50,000 and that guy $20,000 and they open the connection. So they have the capacity but they do not give it to people until there is some payment under the table,” Murr claimed.

The MTV head said the same applied for high-tech telecoms equipment that companies have to buy from licensed distributors for what Murr claims are inflated prices due to kickbacks to the ministry and Ogero. “You are forced to go buy a specific item … they sell the equipment for $60,000 while it costs $5,000, why? … So he [Youssef] can get his commission.”

Yet, Murr insisted that despite all the issues MTV was facing, he was confident that the network could weather the storm, adding that he would continue to fight to clear MTV’s name.