{"id":5916,"date":"2018-11-21T18:30:16","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T14:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/?p=5916"},"modified":"2018-11-21T18:30:16","modified_gmt":"2018-11-21T14:30:16","slug":"interpol-presidency-vote-russia-in-surprise-loss-to-south-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/2018\/11\/21\/interpol-presidency-vote-russia-in-surprise-loss-to-south-korea\/","title":{"rendered":"Interpol presidency vote: Russia in surprise loss to South Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interpol has elected South Korean Kim Jong-yang as its president, rejecting the controversial Russian frontrunner.<\/p>\n

Mr Kim was chosen by Interpol’s 194 member states at a meeting of its annual congress in Dubai.<\/p>\n

He beat Russia’s Alexander Prokopchuk, who has been accused of using Interpol’s arrest warrant system to target critics of the Kremlin.<\/p>\n

Russia blamed the outcome on “unprecedented pressure and interference”.<\/p>\n

The election follows the disappearance of Interpol’s former president Meng Hongwei, who vanished on a trip to China in September.\u00a0Beijing has since confirmed he has been detained\u00a0and is being investigated for allegedly taking bribes.<\/p>\n

Who is Kim Jong-yang?<\/h2>\n

Mr Kim, 57, is a former South Korean police officer who once served as head of police in Gyeonggi, the country’s most populous province.<\/p>\n

He was already senior vice-president of Interpol and had been serving as acting president since Mr Meng’s disappearance. He will serve out the remaining two years of Mr Meng’s term.<\/p>\n

Although his role as president is largely ceremonial – the day-to-day running of Interpol is led by Secretary-General J\u00fcrgen Stock – it does wield influence.<\/p>\n

Upon his election, Mr Kim said: “Our world is now facing unprecedented changes which present huge challenges to public security and safety.<\/p>\n

“To overcome them, we need a clear vision: we need to build a bridge to the future.”<\/p>\n

Who is Alexander Prokopchuk?<\/h2>\n

Mr Prokopchuk is a Russian general who worked for many years with Russia’s interior ministry.<\/p>\n

\"Alexander<\/span><\/figure>\n
Russian Alexander Prokopchuk was widely considered the frontrunner for the post<\/span><\/figure>\n

While he was Interpol’s Moscow bureau chief, he was accused of abusing the so-called red notice system – international arrest warrants – to target those who were critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n

No such accusations have been levelled at him while he has been one of Interpol’s four vice-presidents.<\/p>\n

Moscow said Mr Prokopchuk would remain an Interpol vice-president and “focus on strengthening the position of Interpol in the international police community and increasing the efficiency of the organisation’s work”.<\/p>\n

Who opposed Prokopchuk’s candidacy and why?<\/h2>\n

There had been growing fears among Russian human rights groups and officials from other countries that Moscow would use his position as president to target its political opponents.<\/p>\n

A bipartisan group of US senators said electing Mr Prokopchuk would be “akin to putting a fox in charge of the henhouse”, while a prominent Kremlin critic said it would be like “putting the mafia in charge”.<\/p>\n

This prompted a furious response from Moscow, who said such comments amounted to a “certain kind of interference in the electoral process of an international organisation”.<\/p>\n

Both the UK foreign office and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threw their weight behind Kim Jong-yang’s candidacy. Lithuania had threatened to withdraw from Interpol if Mr Prokopchuk was elected.<\/p>\n

Two British-based prominent critics of the Kremlin – financier Bill Browder and\u00a0ex-oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky\u00a0– say they plan to launch a legal bid to have Russia suspended by Interpol.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interpol has elected South Korean Kim Jong-yang as its president, rejecting the controversial Russian frontrunner. Mr Kim was chosen by Interpol’s 194 member states at a meeting of its annual congress in Dubai. He beat Russia’s Alexander Prokopchuk, who has been accused of using Interpol’s arrest warrant system to target critics of the Kremlin. Russia …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5917,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5916"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5918,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5916\/revisions\/5918"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}