‘He is responsible for torture’: nominee for Interpol chief accused by detained Britons

An academic and a football fan who were held in the United Arab Emirates claim Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi oversaw physical abuse

Two British men formerly detained in United Arab Emirates are campaigning to prevent a senior Emirati official from becoming the next president of Interpol, accusing him of personal involvement in their arrests and torture.

Academic Matthew Hedges, who was imprisoned in the UAE for seven months, and football fan Ali Issa Ahmad, detained while on holiday in Dubai for wearing a Qatar football shirt, accuse Major General Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi of overseeing their detention and physical abuse.

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Has Interpol become the long arm of oppressive regimes?

Once used in the hunt for fugitive criminals, the global police agency’s most-wanted ‘red notice’ list now includes political refugees and dissidents

Flicking through the news one day in early 2015, Alexey Kharis, a California-based businessman and father of two, came across a startling announcement: Russia would request a global call for his arrest through the International Criminal Police Organization, known as Interpol.

“Oh, wow,” Kharis thought, shocked. All the 46-year-old knew about Interpol and its pursuit of the world’s most-wanted criminals was from novels and films. He tried to reassure himself that things would be OK and it was just an intimidatory tactic of the Russian authorities. Surely, he reasoned, the world’s largest police organisation had no reason to launch a hunt for him.

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