‘Interpol will be tool for dictators with UAE general at helm’
INTERPOL is now a “tool for dictators”, the British academic allegedly tortured in the United Arab Emirates has said, after the country’s security chief was elected as the body’s president.
Matthew Hedges, who was interrogated for months without a lawyer in 2018, warned that the election yesterday of Gen Ahmed Nasser al-raisi to the head of the international policing organisation gave authoritarian regimes carte blanche to hunt down opponents.
It comes as the Middle East expert revealed he has been routinely followed in London by people he believes to be agents of the UAE.
He accused the Gulf state of a deliberate campaign of “intimidation” as he battles to highlight human rights abuses in the country.
Last night, Mr Hedges’s lawyer, who is understood also to have been subject to surveillance, called on police to investigate what he called a “matter of grave concern”.
Gen Raisi was elected president of Interpol at the annual assembly in Turkey having received 69.9 per cent of the votes from member countries.
Despite having been accused of overseeing torture by multiple human rights organisations, his victory was considered a foregone conclusion by many observers following a lengthy behind-the-scenes campaign by the UAE, coupled with large financial contributions to the organisation.
Interpol was already under fire for routinely issuing “red notices” on behalf of oppressive governments, allowing rivals to be detained overseas.
Mr Hedges, 34, who was interrogated for 15 hours a day and given a highly damaging cocktail of drugs over seven months in an Abu Dhabi prison, said Gen Raisi’s election would “take the reins off ” the international system.
“This 100 per cent makes Interpol a tool for dictators and it legitimises abuse of red notices,” he said. “It’s a sad day for international policing.”
Mr Hedges has launched civil proceedings in the UK and criminal action in France and Turkey against Gen Raisi, for his alleged torture in 2018.
Three other senior Emirati officials are also being sued in the UK.
Mr Hedges, then researching his PHD at Durham University, was ultimately sentenced to life in prison for spying, but released shortly after.
Gen Raisi is also accused of being responsible for the physical abuse and torture of another British citizen, Ali Issa Ahmad, who was arrested in the UAE for wearing a Qatar football shirt.
If French authorities decide to proceed with the case it raises the prospect that the general could become the first Interpol chief not to be able to travel to the body’s headquarters in Lyon.
Emirati authorities have publicly backed Gen Raisi and deny all the allegations against him.
Radha Stirling, the head of the campaign group Detained in Dubai, said: “Not only is Gen Raisi himself accused of complicity in torture, but the UAE has established itself as one of the most prolific abusers of the Interpol system.”