IEmirati Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi, president of Interpol since November, is in turmoil. Following the complaint by the NGO Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR), the Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) decided to open a preliminary investigation for “torture” and “barbarism”, learned Agence France -Press Thursday, March 24 from a judicial source. GCHR considers Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi to be one of those responsible for the torture targeting one of the main Emirati opponents, Ahmed Mansoor, through his functions as a senior official in the Ministry of Interior of the United Arab Emirates. The judicial source did not indicate on what date the investigation of the Pnat, competent in matters of crimes against humanity, had been 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).
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 defendant in France” because of his duties at Interpol, “it is totally incomprehensible that the Pnat did not arrest Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi when he had the opportunity to do so”. “If immunity were to be invoked by General Al-Raisi, it can only be invoked by the defendant, and certainly not by the Pnat, which must not replace him”, he said. on guard.
Does diplomatic immunity apply?
According to the lawyer’s analysis, Ahmed Naser 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. The lawyer added that his client Khalid Ibrahim, director of the GHCR, had been heard by the gendarmes of the OCLCH on March 18. General Al-Raisi had already been the subject of two complaints, one of which had been filed by the GCHR, already on June 7.
These 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. In January, the organization had filed the new simple complaint which led to this investigation, pointing out that Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi was this time in Lyon, tweets from Interpol in support. Other more recent tweets, at the beginning of March, showed it again in France.
In addition to his part-time, unpaid and largely ceremonial duties with Interpol since November, Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi has served as Inspector General of the UAE Interior Ministry since 2015.
