Late last month, Sali Hafez walked into a Beirut bank with a fake pistol and demanded a teller hand over $12,000. On Thursday, the novice bank robber walked from a court to the acclaim of supporters and even to smiles of apparent admiration from court officials and police.
After a fortnight on the run, Hafez had handed herself in a day earlier, in effect throwing herself on the mercy of a court system that was trying to navigate its way through an economic collapse like no other and the disintegration of Lebanese citizens’ pacts with their already fragile state.
