Rana Accoumeh: Ex-Lebanese politician charged with drug supply

A former politician who fled Lebanon to Australia due to political opposition has tearfully admitted her role in her bodybuilder husband’s significant drug supply.

Rana Accoumeh outside Downing Centre District Court on Friday.

A former Lebanese politician stuck labels on steroid bottles for her award-winning bodybuilder husband’s significant supply operation, a court has heard.

Rana Accoumeh fled Lebanon for Australia in 2009 and procured a protection visa due to political opposition she faced in her home country as a politician.

Her family’s new life took an inauspicious turn when her husband, bodybuilder and trainer Youssef Hammoud, began supplying a commercial quantity of steroids to financially support their family during the 2020 Covid lockdowns.

He pleaded guilty to ongoing commercial drug supply and commercial drug supply – with other offences including dealing with crime proceeds taken into account – in June 2022 and was convicted and sentenced to four and a half years’ imprisonment.

Hammoud was released on parole in January 2023 before he was taken into immigration detention.

Rana Accoumeh will be sentenced on June 2.

Accoumeh is now facing the prospect of jail time over her involvement in the scheme, for which she has pleaded guilty to commercial testosterone supply, six prohibited drug supply charges and dealing with $141,200 in crime proceeds.

She gave evidence about her challenging personal circumstances in a sentence hearing before Judge Gina O’Rourke at Sydney District Court on Friday.

The court heard Accoumeh stuck labels on the steroids and rented a Kennards storage unit in her name where the business was partially conducted between June and October 2020.

In an interview with a psychologist for a sentencing report, the court heard Accoumeh had not originally understood how serious her actions were because steroids are legal in Lebanon.

“I know now it’s very serious,” Accoumeh said.

“I know now about the law and everything about supplying steroids, I know it’s wrong, I know it’s a serious crime.”

Accoumeh is a mother of two who cannot work as one of her children has complex needs.

She said she has no family in Australia to support her if she is jailed for her crimes.

A Crown prosecutor asked Accoumeh if she had ever challenged her husband to stop what he was doing.

The court heard her bodybuilding husband was also a regular steroid user, to the extent that he incurred an infection and had to be hospitalised for emergency surgery on his feet.

“I said just stop it, because I know steroids are something bad, I can see him hurting himself from it,” Accoumeh said.

“He doesn’t listen … it’s the way he talked to me that put me in a pressure, steroids are really bad, it affects the community, it affects people.”

Accoumeh also told the court her husband would be on edge, screaming and unhappy after using steroids.

“It was a little bit scary, it depends when he takes steroids but it was more often especially when he did competitions,” Accoumeh said.

Judge O’Rourke adjourned the matter for sentence on June 2.