His council announced, on Saturday, that the former American lawyer for the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was sentenced by the Emirati judiciary to pay a large fine on charges of “money laundering”, left the country after being expelled.
“He’s on his way to the United States.”e Faisal Gill, explaining that his client, Asim Ghafoor, paid a fine of five million dirhams (1.7 million Canadian dollars).
He was arrested in July in the United Arab Emirates and sentenced to three years in prison and a fine of three million dirhams (one million dollars) for “money laundering linked to a tax evasion operation in the United States.” Mr. Ghafoor’s prison sentence has been overturned. Thursday.
A court in Abu Dhabi later sentenced him to pay five million dirhams and decided to expel him from Emirati lands.
According to the Emirates News Agency, Mr. Ghafoor is being tried at the request of the US authorities. In July, the US State Department denied Ghafoor’s arrest request and said the case did not appear to be related to his links to Jamal Khashoggi.
Mr. Ghafoor’s lawyer confirmed that no charges had been brought against him in the United States.
Mr. Ghafoor is the president of a law firm and a board member of the group Democratic Human Rights in the Arab World Now (DAWN), which was founded by Jamal Khashoggi.
The assassination of Mr. Khashoggi in 2018 by Saudi agents tarnished the image of the kingdom, a close ally of the neighboring United Arab Emirates.
“Total coffee aficionado. Travel buff. Music ninja. Bacon nerd. Beeraholic.”
More Stories
Quebec delegation to Gaza: “We are committed to knowing that there is an element of risk”
Senate: Rapid dismissal of charges against Mayorkas
Volcano erupts in Indonesia, hundreds of residents evacuated