General al-Raisi, who tortured prisoners, elected as President of Interpol

Lawsuits have been filed against him in France, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden and Turkey.

Gennady Charodeyev

Ignoring the ill-wishers, the general declared that he was "honored to serve the citizens of the world" and promised to build a more transparent International Criminal Police Organization that would work "to ensure security for all." The hall of the 89th session of the General Assembly of the Organization, which was held in Istanbul, greeted the election of al-Raisi with thunderous and prolonged applause.

Many foreign experts, however, note that the election of the "bloody monster" al-Raisi followed after the Emirates allocated 50 million euros to the Interpol budget.

In the meantime, the press began to get involved in unleashing the scandal. Thus, the BBC spoke about two Britons - scientist Matthew Hedges and football fan Ali Issa Ahmad, who accuse General al-Raisi of encouraging torture in UAE prisons.

Hedges, as it turns out, was arrested on suspicion of espionage, spent seven months in prison, after which he was pardoned and sent home. His guilt was never proven.

Issa Ahmad arrived in the UAE in January 2019 for the Asian Football Cup and was detained on a street in Dubai for wearing a Qatar jersey. In the Emirates, this country was then considered their political enemy. As a result, the security officer forced Ahmad to take off his T-shirt and handcuffed him.

In a conversation with DW, Issa Ahmad also said that during his arrest and transportation, they beat him and pulled a plastic bag over his head twice, and in the cell they did not allow him to sleep. He was tortured with an electric shock, systematically beaten and interrogated about his possible connections with Qatar

Both Britons reported scars and abrasions on their bodies. According to Issa Ahmad, he had traces of burns and cuts.

They say that the Secretary General of Interpol Jurgen Stock has a lot of similar complaints on his desk, but he does not give them a move.

Earlier, members of the European Parliament sent a letter to the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in which they warned that the election of al-Raisi as President of Interpol would be a blow to the organization's reputation: mission". But what happened happened.

The UAE authorities in the West have repeatedly heard accusations that they often resort to so-called "red notices" in order to prosecute politicians, oppositionists and journalists who find themselves abroad, accusing them of corruption or terrorism.

According to human rights activists from Human Rights Watch, many authoritarian countries use the Interpol system for their own purposes. While this Organization is an international body of exclusively criminal police, the authorities of these countries attribute criminal offenses to their political opponents in order to involve Interpol in their search. In particular, it is known that in April 2021 Lukashenko included the leader of the Belarusian opposition Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in the list of persons involved in terrorist activities. However, Interpol has refused her international wanted list.

Today, 192 states are members of Interpol. It is the second largest international organization in the number of member countries after the UN. The headquarters of the International Criminal Police is located in Lyon, France. Russia joined Interpol in 1990.

Interpol employees do not participate in the detention of dangerous criminals, pursuits and shootings. The task of the organization is to coordinate the activities of the police departments of different countries in order to combat organized crime, counterfeiters, economic crimes, drug trafficking and human trafficking. At the same time, Interpol's charter prohibits him from investigating activities of a political, military, religious or racial nature.

As a former Interpol employee, reserve colonel Ivan Remizov told Novye Izvestia, the election of General al-Raisi to the post of leader is not the first scandal in the history of the Organization. In November 2016, Interpol was headed by an official from China, Meng Hongwei. His term was supposed to expire in 2020, but in 2018 he suddenly disappeared. It was soon revealed that Meng had been detained by officers from the Chinese anti-corruption department. We do not know the details of the criminal case. But it is known that in 2020 he was sentenced in China to 13.5 years in prison on charges of economic crimes.

The Interpol presidency is a part-time, unpaid position with limited powers, as the day-to-day running of the Organization is the responsibility of the Secretary General. The main responsibilities of the head of Interpol lie with the secretary general, who is elected every five years.

This post is now held by former German policeman Jurgen Stock. He came to work at Interpol in 2005, became its Secretary General in 2014 and was re-elected in 2019, the expert noted.