Ahmed Nasser Al-Raisi, who rose to the presidency of Interpol in November under criticism from NGOs, is now the target of an investigation in Paris for “torture” and “barbarism” after a complaint from an NGO denouncing the treatment of one of the main Emirati opponents, imprisoned since 2017.
It was the anti-terrorism prosecution (Pnat) which opened this preliminary investigation, AFP learned from sources familiar with the matter, confirmed by a judicial source.
This last source specified that this investigation followed a complaint filed in January by the NGO Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR), which accused Mr. Al-Raisi of being, through his duties as Inspector General at the Ministry of the Interior of the United Arab Emirates since 2015, one of the persons responsible for the tortures targeting the opponent Ahmed Mansoor.
The judicial source did not indicate on what date the investigation of the Pnat, competent in matters of crimes against humanity, was opened.
According to two sources familiar with the matter, she was entrusted to the gendarmes of the Central Office for the Fight against Crimes against Humanity, Genocide and War Crimes (OCLCH).
Me William Bourdon, lawyer for the GCHR, told AFP that “as soon as a preliminary investigation was opened, and it was necessary because of the presence of the respondent in France” as part of his duties to Interpol, “it is totally incomprehensible that the Pnat did not have Mr. Al-Raisi arrested when he had the opportunity to do so”.
“If immunity were to be invoked by General Ai-Raisi, it can only be invoked by the defendant, and certainly not by the Pnat which must not replace him”, he pointed out. keep.
– Immunity? –
According to the lawyer’s analysis, Mr. Al-Raisi would be one of the current perpetrators of this torture, which would be grounds for an exception to the diplomatic immunity he enjoys under the 2008 agreement governing relations between France and Interpol, the organization whose headquarters it hosts.
He has, through his functions, “directly supervised the increased repression of rights and freedoms and their defenders in the United Arab Emirates, and in the first place Ahmed Mansoor”, advanced the NGO in its June complaint.
Khalid Ibrahim, director of the GHCR, told AFP that he was heard by the OCLCH gendarmes on March 18.
“I told them that the Pnat was very slow to act on these serious allegations of torture concerning Mr. Al-Raisi, who is fully responsible for the massive human rights violations that have taken place in recent years,” he said. he added.
Mr. Al-Raisi had already been the target of two complaints, including one from the GCHR dating from the beginning of June, when he was tipped to run for the presidency of the international criminal police agency.
The two complaints had been closed by the Pnat for lack of jurisdiction: the person concerned did not reside in France and was not on French soil.
Mr. Al-Raisi was then crowned in Istanbul on November 25, to the chagrin of human rights defenders and politicians, who felt that his presidency undermined the mission of the organization.
This function, part-time and unpaid, is essentially ceremonial, the real boss of the organization being its secretary general, a post occupied by the German Jürgen Stock.
Mr. Al-Raisi had therefore since appeared in Lyon, the headquarters of Interpol, leading the GCHR in January to file its new simple complaint triggering this investigation. More recent Interpol tweets in early March showed its president was in France again.
For several years, NGOs have denounced the fate of Ahmed Mansoor, one of the main defenders of human rights in the UAE, who is still believed to be detained in “medieval” conditions which still constitute “torture”, according to the GCHR complaint.
A human rights activist, the opponent has been in prison since March 2017 and was sentenced to ten years in prison in 2018 for having, according to the authorities, criticized the Emirati authorities and tarnished the image of his country on the networks. social.
In a statement released in January 2020, the Emirati Foreign Ministry dismissed “baseless” claims by NGOs about Mr Mansoor’s fate.
For its part, Interpol pointed out in January that “Al-Raisi holds full-time official duties in his own country and is not permanently based in Lyon”, considering that the dispute was “a subject between the parties concerned”.