With the crimes of tax evasion and money laundering… The arrest of Assem Ghafour
In its efforts to combat money laundering crimes, the UAE has arrested the former lawyer of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an American citizen convicted in absentia.
An Abu Dhabi money laundering court sentenced him to three years in prison. He was fined 3 million dirhams ($816,000) and expelled from the UAE.
A senior administration official told CNN: “I’d say there’s no indication that it was related to Khashoggi or anything else”.
Who is Assem Ghafour?
Assem Ghafour is an Indian-American lawyer born in the United States. He worked in the halls of American politics after graduating law school from the University of Texas.
He served as a legal adviser to the governor of Texas and formed a network of relationships with politicians in Washington before setting up his own law firm in the late 1990s.
Relationship with Cair
He has since been associated with Brotherhood-related organizations, such as CAIR, the American arm of the group, and with Nihad Awad, the head of CAIR.
Ghafour also defended radical organizations and figures accused of involvement in the September 11th attacks, as well as other figures accused of extremism, such as Salman al-Ouda and Safar al-Hawali.
Assem Ghafour has been active in recent years as a legal adviser for organizations linked to the Saudi Brotherhood and the opposition.
He is the legal adviser to DAWN, an organization founded by figures such as Abdullah al-Ouda, the son of radical Saudi preacher Salman al-Ouda.
Assem Ghafour keeps a black record of suspicious transactions with the US-based Muslim Brotherhood’s CAIR organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), created in 1994.
A shared demonic interest brought Ghafour and Care in one boat for a range of legal services and a dubious relationship with Nihad Awad, the executive director and co-founder of CAIR, the Brotherhood, under the pretense of defending rights.
Soon after Ghafour, Awad and others caught the foul odors of terrorism in 2010, they were charged with financing terrorism.
Like the Brotherhood of the Snakes habit of trying to change their skins to escape accountability, Assem Ghafour tried to create space for himself as a legal adviser for the Down Brotherhood, an organization that has gained notoriety in the United States and is run by the leadership of the terrorist organization.
His work
He also worked with another organization called Thewina, founded by Saudi dissidents, such as Abdul Rahman al-Hawali, son of the radical Saudi preacher Safar al-Hawali.
Because of its intertwined relations with these groups, he is believed to be involved in their financial transfers and parallel operations carried out in non-traditional ways to avoid judicial oversight mechanisms in States.
Ghafour was placed on a US security list in 2014 of terrorism financing suspects.
A UAE government official confirmed that Ghafour was arrested during a stop at Dubai International Airport on July 14 in connection with a conviction in absentia for money laundering based on evidence reviewed by UAE courts.
In response to Reuters’ request for comment, the UAE official said the UAE agreed to the US embassy’s request for Ghafour to receive a consular visit. The verdict was issued in absentia, he said, giving Ghafour the right to request a retrial.
“We received the request and it was approved, which led to the reopening of the case”, he said. “The legal procedures that follow from that are ongoing”.
US comment on the arrest of Assem Ghafour
A US source commented on the arrest of US citizen Assem Ghafour by UAE authorities on charges of tax evasion and money laundering.
News reports said the arrested man was a former lawyer for the late Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
According to the network, another administration official said the United States raised the issue of Ghafour’s detention “at high levels with Emirati authorities” and “requested additional information” about his status.
Consular officials from the US embassy visited Ghafour on Saturday, the official said.
He continued: “We conveyed our expectation that Mr. Ghafour’s rights to a fair and public hearing and fair trial guarantees should be fully respected and treated humanely, as well as the rights of the United States to have full consular access”.
