World News
Money Laundering Case; A US citizen who was Khashoggi’s lawyer was arrested and sent to the UAE
Abu Dhabi: UAE authorities have arrested the late Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s lawyer.
American citizen and civil rights lawyer Asim Ghafoor has been arrested by the UAE in a money laundering case. UAE government sources confirmed the arrest to Reuters on Saturday.
Asim Ghafoor was arrested on July 14 while traveling through Dubai airport after failing to appear in a money laundering case.
According to a statement released by Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), an organization of which he is also a board member, Ghafoor was arrested while on his way to Istanbul, Turkey, to attend a family wedding.
The statement also said that Ghafoor did not know that such a case was pending against him.
Official sources in the US said on Saturday that they were aware of Asim Ghafoor’s arrest. But US officials said that it is not possible to say whether US President Joe Biden will raise this issue with the UAE President at the Arab summit held in Saudi Arabia as part of his visit to the Middle East.
“This incident cannot be said to have anything to do with the Khashoggi case,” the US official said.
Saturday was the last day of Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden said that he raised the issue of Khashoggi’s murder with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his visit to Saudi Arabia. Following this, Saudi government representatives and other officials came out criticizing Biden’s response.
During the meeting, when Biden mentioned Khashoggi’s murder, MBS reportedly responded, ‘What happened is regrettable, and all legal measures have been taken to prevent it from happening again. Such incidents can happen anywhere in the world.
Some Saudi officials also responded that the double standard of the US was revealed by raising the issue of Khashoggi.
MBS responded to Biden on the issue by pointing out the US’s double standards. Ali Shihabi, a Saudi analyst, said, “The Israeli army is trying to downplay the incident of the killing of Shireen Abu Akhle, a Palestinian-American journalist who made a big fuss over the killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen.”
In 2018, Jamal Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. But his dead body has not been recovered yet.
Khashoggi was also a fierce critic of the Saudi government and Mohammed bin Salman.
The US intelligence report had also come out earlier that MBS had ordered the operation to kill Khashoggi. But the Saudi government and MBS denied all this.
Content Highlight: UAE arrested Jamal Khashoggi’s former lawyer, US citizen on money laundering charges