Weaponising Interpol: the UAE's abuse of Red Notices

An Interpol Red Notice is one of the most powerful tools in international law enforcement. In the wrong hands it becomes a weapon: a way for a state to reach across borders and have a person arrested, frozen out of banking, and threatened with extradition, long after they have left. The UAE, Dubai Watch warns, is one of the worst offenders.

What a Red Notice is, and why it matters to you

A Red Notice is an international alert asking police worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest someone pending extradition. It is not a court conviction, but in practice it can be devastating: detention at a border, a frozen bank account, a lost job, months fighting extradition. Crucially, it can be requested for a "crime" that is really a commercial dispute, an unpaid debt, a bounced cheque, or simply criticism of the authorities.

The report David Haigh commissioned

In 2021, on the instruction of Dubai Watch co-founder David Haigh, a landmark legal report was produced: Undue Influence: The UAE and Interpol. It was written by Sir David Calvert-Smith, the former Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales, assisted by the barristers Rhys Davies and Ben Keith. Commissioning it was part of David Haigh's long-running work challenging the abuse of the Interpol system by the Emirates.

The report found strong evidence that the UAE had misused the Red Notice system for minor offences and, most importantly, for political gain against those seen as a threat to the regime. It found coherent evidence that the UAE was seeking to improperly influence Interpol through funding, citing a large donation made by Abu Dhabi to Interpol in 2017.

An unsuitable candidate for the top of Interpol

The report concluded that the UAE's candidate for the presidency of Interpol, Major General Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi, then Inspector General of the UAE's Ministry of the Interior, was unsuitable for the role. Sitting at the very top of the Emirati criminal justice system, he had, the report said, overseen an increased crackdown on dissent, continued torture, and abuses, including the detention and torture of British citizens. It recommended that Interpol publish its list of candidates and not elect the UAE nominee. Despite the warnings from the report, human rights groups and detained Britons such as academic Matthew Hedges, Al-Raisi was elected President of Interpol in November 2021.

Dubai Watch on Interpol abuse

Dubai Watch co-founder David Haigh has spent years fighting this abuse at first hand. He warns that the problem is not confined to a single case, or even a single country.

David Haigh acts on exactly these cases. He has provided factual and expert testimony to help prevent extraditions to Dubai and the wider UAE, and to challenge and remove abusive Interpol Red Notices, working to get the wrongly targeted out of danger and cleared of notices that should never have been issued.

What this means for you

How to protect yourself

• Before you travel, take advice if you have ever had a legal, financial or business dispute in the UAE.
• You can ask Interpol's Commission for the Control of Files (CCF) whether data is held about you, and apply to have an abusive notice deleted.
• Do not assume a UAE "criminal case" is genuine: debts and commercial disputes are routinely criminalised there.
• Keep records of any UAE proceedings, judgments and correspondence.
• Get specialist legal help early. Red notices can often be challenged and removed.

In the media

Coverage and primary documents on the report. Links open externally; inclusion is coverage, not endorsement.

Sources: Undue Influence: The UAE and Interpol (Sir David Calvert-Smith, assisted by Rhys Davies and Ben Keith, 2021), commissioned on the instruction of David Haigh; 5 St Andrew's Hill; Temple Garden Chambers; The Telegraph; The New Arab. Compiled by Dubai Watch. This alert is information, not legal advice.

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