MADRID, 17 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Asim Ghafoor, former lawyer of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashogi, brutally murdered by Saudi agents in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, has been sentenced in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to three years in prison for tax evasion and money laundering.
The lawyer, a US citizen, would have been “arbitrarily” detained when making an air stopover in the UAE, as reported by the Human Rights organization to which he belongs, Democracy Now for the Arab World (DAWN).
Ghafoor has been found guilty of two crimes of tax evasion and money laundering in relation to a single operation that will also lead him to pay a fine of three million dirhams (more than 800,000 euros), as reported by the agency. of WAM state news.
The case against him has gone ahead after the US authorities asked the UAE for help in carrying out an investigation against Ghafoor for alleged tax evasion after a series of “suspicious” transfers to the Middle Eastern country.
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The organization to which he belongs, however, denounces that there is “no public evidence” to support Ghafoor’s arrest, for which he demands the “immediate release” of the activist.
Ghafoor normally resides in the state of Virginia, but traveled to Dubai on July 14, a stopover for his final destination, Istanbul. Ghafoor sent a text message reporting that two plainclothes Emirati officers approached him as he was waiting for his plane to depart.
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