Funding terrorism among the reasons for the arrest of the Minister of Finance in Qatar
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Alaina
- . May 7, 2021
- . Update: May 7, 2021 4:00 pm
Qatar’s Attorney General has ordered the arrest of Finance Minister Ali Shareef al Emadi as part of an investigation in which Emadi is accused of misuse of public funds and abuse of power, the Qatar News Agency reported, adding that a more in-depth investigation will be opened on the matter, without providing further details.
Al Emadi was the Qatari Finance Minister since 2013. Previously he served as CEO of the National Bank of Qatar, and had a very important role in its expansion, becoming its president in 2013. Al Emadi is also a member of the powerful sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority, which manages the revenues from the sales of liquefied natural gas, of which the country is the world’s largest exporter. Over the past year, the Qatari economy has suffered severe losses as a result of the pandemic, which has greatly reduced demand for natural gas around the world.
The Financial Times reported, citing an unnamed source in Doha, that the charges against him involve corruption and commissions related to government contracts. The investigation focuses on his conduct as a minister and not his other positions, particularly observers believe the minister was arrested after the disclosure of money transfers from banks and charities affiliated with Qatar to terrorist groups and organizations in Syria and Iraq in the form of charitable aid.
In exchange for the massive investments of the Qatar Investment Authority in every sector of the economy, the Minister of Finance, Ali Shareef al Emadi, would have given the green light to the financing of the fundamentalist proselytizing activities of the Brotherhood through the Qatar Charity.
In 2017, Qatar was isolated from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Emirates, and Bahrain on charges of supporting terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood across the Middle East. The calls for jihad in Syria and Egypt launched by the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Yusuf Qaradawi, through the microphones of the Qatari television station Al-Jazeera are well known.
Equally well recognised is the financing activity carried out by Qatar towards numerous Islamic cultural centers and places of worship throughout Europe with the aim of hegemonizing Islam in the Old Continent according to the radical vision of the Muslim Brotherhood.
This activity is widely documented in the document “Qatar Papers,” published by experts Christian Chesnutt and Georges Malbrounot and according to which the Qatar Charity Foundation would finance 140 projects in Europe worth over 120 million euros. More recently, Doha and its Finance minister have also been accused of supporting Hezbollah, a Shiite jihadist organization blacklisted for terrorism by the US, the European Union, and Israel.
