Interpol at Russia’s Service

27.09.2023 0 By Writer.NS

Aleksey Yeliseevs

Aleksey Yeliseevs, LLD with research and expert experience from Latvia and head of CAC SIA, highlighted the facts of Interpol’s work for the aggressor country. This Latvian legal practice is aimed at of the protection of human rights against persecution and discrimination, as well as the provision of asylum and legal assistance in matters of protection against illegal persecution using the mechanisms of Interpol.

Almost 1.5 million people fled Russia after the start of the war, according to estimates from the British Ministry of Defence. Russia, as always, uses INTERPOL to harass these citizens.

Russia’s Deputy Prosecutor General for Search and Extradition Petr Gorodov, a former senior INTERPOL official, allegedly continues to exert influence over its secretariat in Lyon. This is against the background of some public allegations that Mr. Gorodov and his corrupt accomplices are suspected of devising a scheme to extort money from citizens who have been red-flagged through INTERPOL.

Before the war, Russia was responsible for a staggering 38% of requests to Interpol to repress people, and now it is almost 50%. To put the matter in context, Russia has less than 2% of the world’s population. In comparison, the United States filed 4.3% and 0.5% by China.

This is why the Putin regime uses INTERPOL to crack down on opponents of the war. On 9 March 2022, the European Parliament raised the same issue before the EU Commission in the context of connecting INTERPOL to the European Search Portal (ESP)^[1].

But INTERPOL’s General Secretariat refused the request to suspend Russia’s access to INTERPOL’s systems, citing the neutrality and openness of the police international cooperation organization. Its 10 March 2022 statement argued that «INTERPOL’s mandate does not include issuing sanctions or taking punitive measures, nor is there any provision in the Constitution for the suspension or exclusion of a member country.» The declaration, however, was just a verbal trick—the General Secretariat’s power to suspend a member state’s access rights is granted by INTERPOL’s Rules on the Processing of Data, not by its Constitution.

Instead of exercising its direct authority under regulatory rules, the General Secretariat announced some formalities which, de facto, were a poor imitation of so-called «heightened supervision and monitoring measures in relation to Russia.» Not surprisingly, these cosmetic changes haven’t stemmed—or even slowed—the flow of politically motivated red notices and diffusions circulated by Russian requests. What has changed is the sophistication of procedural manipulations perpetrated by Russia’s National Central Bureaus. As evidenced by my legal practice—and contrary to the declared goals—the systemic abuse of international police cooperation by Russian authorities has only worsened. Indeed, out of all public Red Notices in circulation, Russia’s current total of—more than 46%^[2] versus 38% pre-war —is a travesty. It cannot represent “heightened supervision to prevent any potential misuse of INTERPOL’s channels” by Russia.

So, it turns out that Putin has again won in this field of international bureaucracy? What is the reason for his success? The fact is that the Russian media declared victory, asserting that «INTERPOL did not concede Russia to Ukraine»^[3].

The issues with systemic abuse of international police cooperation by Russian authorities appeared long before it invaded Ukraine. For example, the 2013 Istanbul declaration of the OSCE Parliament assembly already mentioned that Russia was using the Interpol system to seek the arrest of opponents on politically motivated charges^[4]. In the 2019 Luxemburg declaration, the OSCE Parliament assembly directly condemned the Russian Federation for politically motivated abuse of INTERPOL databases and mechanisms, including red notices and diffusions, to harass political opponents, journalists, members of civil society and business people beyond its borders^[5]. This was not an abstract concern. According to the 2021 Freedom House special report^[6].

Anyway, alarming trends have begun to emerge in the work of this body. Incidents from my legal practice include Russian investigators obtaining sensitive and confidential applicant data before (or in the absence of) the INTERPOL receiving authorization from the owner to disclose it. Another egregious example is restricting access to any data-related information from Russia, even including its existence or non-existence in the INTEROL’s files. The result is that the INTERPOL decisions on the merits of deletion requests are never conveyed to applicants, rendering the right to challenge inaccurate or illegal data completely ineffective. To the detriment of its victims’ human rights, the INTERPOL only seems concerned with protecting the Russian National Central Bureaus. The ironic icing on the cake occurred when INTERPOL invited the client, who was granted the protective status as a refugee to protect him from Russia, to contact Russian authorities for assistance.

Interpol cannot persecute people for their political beliefs or for other similar reasons, for example, if a Russian left Russia to escape conscription into the army – in such situations it is impossible to declare a search for this person through Interpol.

Russia has learned to bypass this system: mostly fabricated criminal cases are initiated against people, and this gives grounds to put them on the international wanted list. Political refugees and other asylum seekers in civilized countries such as Latvia are not in danger, since in most cases the Latvian authorities understand the essence of the matter and do not engage in searches, and in situations where a person is detained, the problem is quickly resolved with the help of lawyers.

Russia is the most frequent abuser of Interpol Red Notices, having worked out long ago that the system represented a perfect way to extend its global reach. Interpol’s reputation has been badly damaged in recent years as a result of a number of scandals, including the conviction of a former Interpol president for corruption and the recent election of a UAE Major General — himself accused of complicity in torture — as the current president.^[7]

Historically, the president of Interpol in 1943-1945 was Ernst Kaltenbrunner, one of the highest leaders in Nazi Germany, head of the Main Directorate of Reich Security of the SS.

Maryna Kovalchuk, Newssky’s own correspondent (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland), head of the V5 Media project, and deputy editor-in-chief, contributed.