Lawsuits in European courts accuse Qatar of perverting justice and supporting terrorism

Mustafa Kamel

After nearly a decade has passed since the Arab Spring, the curtain was revealed about the Qatari regime and Doha’s violations in the field of human rights, as scandals of political corruption or terrorism always haunt it, which has led to lawsuits being filed against the emirate in a number of foreign countries, the most prominent of which is Britain, after many Syrian refugees submitted lawsuits accusing Doha of supporting terrorism in Syria that led to the displacement of millions of Syrians.

Lawsuits

The truth is that Qatar’s violations and unlimited support for terrorism did not exist only in the United States, but also extended to Britain. A number of Syrian refugees filed a lawsuit accusing Qatar of supporting the Al-Qaeda terrorist group Al-Nusra Front in Syria, which caused its money drenched in the blood of innocent people to displace Syrians and push them to emigrate and seek asylum.

Doha resorted to what it was always good at by supporting terrorism, instead of the Qatari regime standing in front of the judiciary to use its money to bring lawyers to defend it on the charges against it, it was providing support for terrorism day and night. The British police opened an investigation into the Qatari government carrying out an operation of intimidation of witnesses in a case and the implantation of illegal tracking devices, according to the Guardian and The Times newspapers.

Corruption of justice

The accusations against Qatar of perverting the course of justice appeared during a hearing in the case of Qatar’s financing of the Al-Nusra Front in Syria through Doha Bank in London, which was filed by eight Syrian refugees against Doha Bank. British media reported that the anti-terror police is investigating allegations that witnesses and plaintiffs in the case have been subjected to intimidation by officials working for Qatar, where the plaintiffs of the lawsuit say that they fled to the Netherlands after Al-Nusra Front, which controls parts of northern Syria, destroyed their homes and threatened them, and they are suing Doha Bank, because it was used to transfer money to the terrorist group in Syria.

British barrister Ben Emerson, who is representing four of these Syrian refugees before the Supreme Court, said that interference with justice has taken the form of harassment, intimidation, pressure, covert illegal surveillance abroad, threats of visits by armed and masked men during the night, and attempted bribery. He stressed that the Anti-Terrorism Command of the Metropolitan Police received the details of the campaign of intimidation that involved attempts to corrupt the course of justice in both the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The court heard the facts that included attempts to bribe, monitor and harass witnesses, and said that all these practices were carried out with orders from Qatar.

According to the lawyer, offers were made by officials in Doha with untold wealth to persuade people to reveal the identities of the people who filed the lawsuit against Doha Bank, as they are protected by anonymity orders related in order to preserve their safety. Four of the plaintiffs actually withdrew from the lawsuit due to the constant threats to which they are exposed.

Qatari responsibility

The lawyer explained that the allegation in this case is that the Qatari state itself is responsible for financing Al-Nusra Front, and it did so through the intermediary of the first two defendants, the Khayyat brothers and the companies that they own, in addition to the accounts they have in Doha Bank. Evidence indicates that Qatar is involved in a continuous campaign of sending many individuals to multiple locations over a long period of time, with the aim of spoiling the course of public justice in these procedures, intimidating witnesses and persuading them to abandon their demands.

Other cases

This was not the first case against Qatar in the British courts. It was preceded by the trial of Barclays Bank, in which senior bankers are facing a trial by jury in relation to the events that occurred during the bank’s financial crisis, and it revealed the involvement of former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim. In this case, after he requested a personal commission from Barclays during a phone call with bank officials in 2008 in exchange for increasing the Qatari investment in the bank to save it from its financial crisis and avoiding the government bailout plan, as the British Office of Serious Fraud Crime claimed John Varley, who was the CEO of Barclays Bank, along with Roger Jenkins, Richard Booth and Tom Kalaris, secretly directed £322 million to Qatar in exchange for an investment of £11 billion through agreements for consulting services, while the four defendants deny the charges against them.

The Telegraph revealed the details of another case, as a lawsuit was filed against Qatari diplomatic attache Abdullah Ali Al-Ansari, who worked at the Qatari embassy in London, after describing his driver in the most heinous terms. In November last year, the newspaper confirmed the details of a Qatari embassy employee in London being subjected to some physical harassment by some embassy diplomats, while she was granted compensation of approximately £390,000.