Will this Russian be the next head of INTERPOL?
CRITICS WORRY MOSCOW’S MAN COULD SUBVERT ORGANIZATION
A top Russian official accused of using Interpol to promote the interests of the Kremlin is expected to be elected president of that international law enforcement agency on Wednesday.
Canada stopped short of criticizing Alexander Prokopchuk’s candidacy but is watching deliberations at the 192-country police co-ordinating body “very closely,” Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said during an Ottawa press conference on Tuesday.
Critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin say Prokopchuk’s election could damage the institution and further politicize international police co-operation. The United States has publicly endorsed a candidate from South Korea, Kim Jong Yang, the interim president. The presidency is mostly a ceremonial role, but is nonetheless seen as an important oversight position.
“Canada is watching very closely what is happening with Interpol. Canada, of course, is very aware of the ways in which Russia as a country has acted in clear and flagrant violation of international law,” Freeland said.
Canada contributed 1,638,108 euros to Interpol’s budget in 2017, or roughly $2.5 million. It puts up a similar amount every year.
Brenda Lucki, commissioner of the RCMP, is representing Canada at Interpol’s general meeting in Dubai this week, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said.
“Obviously she and Canada are working assiduously to defend our interests. Interpol is a very valuable organization to combat crossborder and international crime. It’s our very strong view that the agency should never be used in an abusive way, and that the abuses need to be resisted,” said Goodale. “We’ll see how the deliberations of the general meeting of Interpol turn out, but it’s very clear Canada will stand up for Canada, and we will stand up for the integrity of Interpol.”
Prokopchuk’s candidacy wasn’t widely known until the weekend, presumably because Russia expected an uproar. It was he who, as head of Russia’s Interpol branch for seven years, was responsible for issuing myriad “red notices,” or international arrest warrants, against prominent opponents of Putin.
One of the notices was for Bill Browder, an American who runs an investment firm that was previously based in Moscow. He has spearheaded international efforts to levy targeted sanctions against foreign human rights abusers under Sergei Magnitsky laws, named after his lawyer, a specialist in anti-corruption who suspiciously died in a Moscow prison in 2009.
Canada adopted a Magnitsky Act last year and has used it to impose economic sanctions on foreign officials — from several countries including Russia — it believes to be corrupt. Russia has decried such sanctions and continued a push to capture Browder. Aside from its use of the red notice system, it was accusing him this week of having poisoned his lawyer in the first place.
Goodale had condemned Russia’s use of a red notice against Browder last year, when Browder was attempting to visit Canada to celebrate the passage of the Magnitsky Act.
“We made it abundantly clear that we would not accept that behaviour on the part of Russia, and that the decisions affecting the policy-making and the sovereign authority of Canada would be made in Canada, by Canadians,” Goodale said Tuesday.
National Post reached Browder in the U.K. on Tuesday. He said he hoped Canada would vote against Prokopchuk, but if the candidacy was successful, Canada should also help develop safeguards to prevent the institution from being co-opted. “Canada should be egging on and cajoling all of its allies around the world to do the same,” he said.
Asked to react to Canada’s wait-and-see position — and the fact ministers didn’t mention the Russian candidacy — he said after a long pause, “That’s not very helpful.”
Wednesday’s vote was triggered after president Meng Hongwei — a Chinese security official who also faced heavy criticism at his election in 2016 because of his country’s human rights record — disappeared in China last month. He is under arrest for “corruption,” thought to be a victim of a political purge.