The Emirati general Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi was elected this Thursday the new president of Interpol, during the assembly held by the international police cooperation body, which takes place in Istanbul, Turkey. Al-Raisi was recently charged with crimes of torture.
The general was chosen to start a four-year term, according to the official Interpol profile on Twitter. The appointment comes after generous funding made by the UAE to Interpol.
Several international organizations, including Human Rights Watch, have issued warnings about the general’s candidacy, who emphasizes that he was one of the main leaders of the UAE police to be accused of acting against opponents.
Former England and Wales Attorney General David Calvert-Smith published a report in April this year in which he assured him that Al-Raisi “oversaw the growing crackdown on dissidents, the ongoing torture and abuses of the system legal” of the nation located in the Persian Gulf.
The lawyers of two British citizens even filed a formal complaint for the crime of torture against the general.
One of them was Matthew Hedges, sentenced to life in prison in the UAE after being convicted of espionage. He later received a pardon from the authorities and was released at the end of 2018.
In addition, the Gulf Center for Human Rights has filed a formal complaint against Al-Raisi in France, the country that hosts Interpol’s headquarters in the city of Lyon. The allegation is of torture committed against Emirati blogger Ahmed Mansur.
A Turkish law firm also handed over to the country’s prosecutor’s office a complaint against the general for torture against Mansur. The complaint needs to be acted upon by the Turkish Ministry of Justice before it becomes effective.
In the elections held at the police body’s General Assembly, Al-Raisi defeated the Czech Sarka Havrankova, who had recently expressed herself on Twitter, promising to adapt Interpol’s work to the “spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.
He was elected after three rounds of voting during which he received 68.9% of the votes cast by member countries, Interpol said in a statement.
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