Interpol elected South Korea’s Kim Jong-yang as its new president on Wednesday, a move that came after days of Western concern over the Russian candidate in the race. The vote took place in Dubai, and the decision ended with the US-backed acting president defeating Alexander Prokopchuk, a Russian interior ministry official and Interpol vice president.
The archive date for this report is November 21, 2018. Kim will complete the remainder of Meng Hongwei’s term until 2020. Meng disappeared in China in September, and Beijing later said he had resigned after being charged with accepting bribes.
The contest had drawn unusual political pressure because critics feared Moscow could use Interpol’s systems to pursue opponents abroad. Those worries focused on Prokopchuk, while supporters of Kim argued that the organisation needed a leader with stronger credibility and less controversy.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo backed Kim on Tuesday, saying:
"We encourage all nations and organisations that are part of Interpol and that respect the rule of law to choose a leader with integrity. We believe Mr. Kim will be just that,"
British minister of state Harriett Baldwin also told parliament that London would support Kim’s bid. In Washington, US National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis repeated the criticism of Russian conduct, saying on Twitter:
"As recent events show, the Russian government abuses INTERPOL's processes to harass its political opponents,"
Opponents of the Russian candidacy pointed to past complaints about Red Notices, the international arrest requests issued through Interpol. A bipartisan group of US senators warned in an open letter that selecting Prokopchuk would be like
"putting a fox in charge of a henhouse".
They added that Russia routinely abuses Interpol to settle scores and harass political opponents, dissidents and journalists.
Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, also objected. He said on Twitter that his team had suffered from abuse of Interpol for political persecution by Russia and that a Russian president would not reduce those violations.
The vote came against a wider backdrop of tensions involving Russia, including accusations that Russian agents tried to poison an ex-spy in Britain and hack the network of the global chemical weapons watchdog. Ukraine said it could leave Interpol if Prokopchuk won, while Lithuania said it would consider withdrawing.
Moscow rejected the criticism. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the senators’ letter as a vivid example of interference in the vote, and the interior ministry denounced what it called a foreign media campaign aimed at discrediting Russia’s candidate.
Outside the election itself, two prominent Kremlin critics moved to challenge Russia’s standing in the organisation. Financier Bill Browder, who has been named in multiple Interpol warrants, and former oil baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky said they were launching a bid to have Russia suspended for abusing the agency.
Browder said the Interpol constitution bars serial abusers from using the system. He also said that after being briefly arrested in Spain this year under a Moscow-issued Red Notice, he believed the Russian candidacy was part of Vladimir Putin’s effort to extend his reach globally.
Browder’s long dispute with Moscow is tied to Sergei Magnitsky, his tax consultant, who died in jail in 2009 after accusing Russian officials of a $230-million tax fraud. Browder later secured US sanctions in 2012 against Russian officials he believed were involved in Magnitsky’s death.
Russia has denied those claims. This week, it said it had opened a new probe into Browder on suspicion of running a transnational criminal gang and even suggested he was behind Magnitsky’s death. Russian prosecutors said he would be placed on an international wanted list in the near future.
According to Russia’s interior ministry, Prokopchuk worked in tax enforcement before joining Interpol as Russia’s representative in 2006.
