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Two Britons accuse the Emirati Ahmed Nasser al-Raisi of having played an indispensable role in the arbitrary arrests and torture they suffered when he was the head of the United Arab Emirates security forces. Both victims have already testified in a Parisian court and, for now, the case is in the hands of an investigating judge.
This Wednesday, the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) reported that it referred to an investigating judge in Paris a complaint made by Matthew Hedges and Ali Issa Ahmad, who point out that Ahmed Nasser al-Raisi, current president of Interpol, was an accomplice in the torture perpetrated against them when he was a senior security officer in the United Arab Emirates.
The judicial investigation in Parisian courts that opened at the end of March includes “torture” and “arbitrary arrest” in 2018 and 2019. Through a statement, the British stated that they will provide evidence to support the accusation. The complaint was filed on the basis of universal jurisdiction, which allows serious crimes to be prosecuted even if they were committed abroad.
Hedges, a student at England’s Durham University, was accused of espionage during a study trip to the United Arab Emirates. Between May and November 2018 he was detained, tortured and claims he was forced to make a false confession. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison, but was quickly released under international pressure led by the UK.
“Given the UAE’s human rights record, it was unbelievable that Al-Raisi was elected president. The torture that we and many others suffer is unfortunately the norm in the country,” he told the court.
The other complainant, Issa Ahmad, is a security officer from Wolverhampton, who claims to have been beaten on several occasions and was even stabbed in the month of detention he lived in Sharjah between January and February 2019. He was arrested for allegedly supporting to Qatar, rival of the United Arab Emirates in the Gulf, during an Arab Cup soccer match.
Currently, Al-Raisi holds the position of president of Interpol for a four-year term, but in an honorary capacity. He is in charge of leading the general assembly and three sessions of the executive committee a year at the organization’s headquarters, located in the French city of Lyon. The general secretary, the German Jürgen Stock, is the one who leads the daily life of the entity.
His election to the position in the international criminal police organization was severely criticized by groups of human rights defenders, who repudiate his management on Emirati soil and evoked the important financing that Interpol pockets from the United Arab Emirates.
He had even been targeted in a case started in November. The Pnat had opened a preliminary investigation into a complaint filed by the NGO Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR) for “torture and barbarism” against Ahmed Mansoor, a leading figure in the defense of human rights in the United Arab Emirates who has been detained since 2017.
However, it was relativized by the national Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which stated that these statements were “unfounded” and Interpol pointed out that it was a conflict “between the parties involved.”
With EFE and AFP
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