(MENAFN- Swissinfo)
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uno holt umstrittenen ex-staatsanwalt ins boot Français
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l'onu s'allie à un qatari au profil controversé pour lutter contre la corruption (original) The announcement drew little attention. On November 4, 2022, in Geneva, UN Assistant Secretary-General Nikhil Seth signed a partnership agreementexternal link with the Global Organisation of Parliamentarians Against Corruption (GOPAC), chaired by Ali Bin Fetais Al-Marri, a former attorney general of Qatar.
The cooperation agreement, signed by GOPAC and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), aims to strengthen the fight against corruption. It includes the development and publication of an anti-corruption training manual for parliamentarians around the world, according to documents published by a Geneva-based organisation, Observatoire Géostratégique de Genève. In 2023 and 2024, officials will hold training workshops and roundtables "to discuss this endemic scourge [corruption] in various countries, exchange experiences and propose ways to address it,” reported the Qatari news website qna.org, which intensively covered the event.
While the initiative is commendable, the UN's decision to collaborate with Al-Marri is questionable. The integrity of this 58-year-old magistrate, who was Qatar's public prosecutor from 2002 to 2021, has been called into doubt on numerous occasions in recent years, both in the international press and in books about the emirate. He is, or has been, the subject of several legal complaints, notably in Switzerland, France, the UK and the US.
The choice of GOPAC also raises questions. It presents itself as an organisation founded in 2002 that unites 170 parliamentarians from various countries to“fight corruption and promote good governance”. However, there is very little information on its activities over the past 20 years. Its website has not been updated since 2011“due to a lack of resources”. At the time of writing, the homepage reads simply:“New website under development. Something interesting is coming!”
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