U.S. officials participate in UAE hearing on detained Americans

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 (Reuters) – U.S. embassy officials attended a hearing on Tuesday in the United Arab Emirates for detained U.S. citizen and human rights lawyer Asim Ghafoor, a State Department official said.

Emirati authorities said Virginia-based Ghafoor was arrested last month while transiting Dubai airport. He was tried in absentia and was convicted in May of tax evasion and money laundering. Gafoor was sentenced to three years in prison and a fine of 3 million dirhams ($816,000), an Emirati official said.

The UAE embassy in Washington said on Monday that the UAE’s investigation into Ghafoor’s activities began in 2020 in response to a request for assistance from the US embassy in Abu Dhabi on behalf of the Justice Department, the FBI and the US Internal Revenue Service.

Washington has not confirmed that the investigation was launched at its request.

“They arrested him based on his own initiative, information and authority,” a senior administration official said.

Human rights groups say Ghafoor was targeted because of his ties to the late Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed by Saudi agents in the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate in 2018, U.S. intelligence said. The department said Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the operation. The prince denied involvement.

The State Department said there was no indication that the detention was related to Ghafoor’s ties to Khashoggi. read more The UAE and Saudi Arabia are close allies.

On Tuesday, the State Department official, who asked not to be named, said Washington was closely monitoring Gafoor’s case and providing consular support. U.S. officials also observed his previous virtual hearings on July 18 and August 1, he said.

“Consular officers from the U.S. embassy visited him seven times, including with him for trial proceedings, most recently on August 9,” the official said.

Another hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, the official said.

The UAE and the United States have been sharing information about the Ghafoor case for more than two years as part of what it said were “increasing cooperation to combat transitional money laundering and illicit financing,” the UAE statement said on Monday.

The State Department official said Washington had seen the UAE’s statement, but did not add further.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

According to Ghafoor’s website, he helped Khashoggi incorporate US-based rights group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) in 2018 and is a member of its board. DAWN has called for his immediate release, saying his conviction was obtained without due process.

Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Grant McCool

Our standard: Thomson Reuters fiduciary principles.