French justice opened an investigation at the end of March against the Emirati president of Interpol, Ahmed Nasser al-Raisi for “complicity in torture” after the complaint of two Britons, AFP learned on Wednesday from sources close to the file.
The National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) confirmed to AFP that it had entrusted a Parisian investigating judge with an investigation after a complaint with civil action evoking “torture” and “arbitrary detention” in 2018 and 2019. The one who is also a senior Emirati police officer is already the subject of a preliminary investigation by the Pnat for other accusations of torture.
This type of complaint makes it possible in France to obtain the almost automatic appointment of an investigating judge, who is statutorily independent.
In a press release, the two Britons indicate that they will “provide evidence of the torture” of which they accuse Mr. Al-Raisi on Wednesday during a hearing “on request by an investigating judge” from the center specializing in crimes against the humanity of the Paris court.
The first plaintiff, Matthew Hedges, is a doctoral student at Durham University in England.
During a press conference in Lyon in October, he recounted the espionage charges he had faced during a study trip to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), following which he said he had been detained and tortured between May and November 2018 and “forced to make a false confession”.
Sentenced to life in November 2018, he was pardoned less than a week later, under international pressure.
At the same conference, Ali Issa Ahmad, a security officer from Wolverhampton (central England), had meanwhile reported having been beaten several times and even stabbed during a month-long stay in detention between January and February 2019 in the emirate of Sharjah.
He had indicated that he had been criticized for having supported too ostensibly during an Asian Cup match the football team of the emirate of Qatar with a T-shirt on which appeared the burgundy flag of this country, rival of the UAE.
The presidency of Interpol is essentially an honorary function. Mr. Al-Raisi was elected president of the international criminal police organization by member states in November, much to the chagrin of human rights defenders and politicians.
The Pnat has also opened a preliminary investigation concerning Major General Al-Raisi after a complaint for “torture” and “barbarism” filed by the NGO Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR), concerning the fate of Ahmed Mansoor, one of the leading human rights defenders in the UAE
In a statement released in January 2020, the Emirati Foreign Ministry dismissed “baseless” claims by NGOs about Mr Mansoor’s fate.
On this aspect, Interpol had stressed in January that the dispute was “a subject between the parties concerned”.