Alarm as Russian general leads race to head Interpol

There is growing international concern that a Russian official with close-ties to the Kremlin could be elected president of Interpol later today.

Alexander Prokopchuk, a veteran of the Russian interior ministry, is one of two candidates to replace Meng Hongwei, who resigned last month after he was detained in China over corruption claims.

According to The Times, British officials have already concluded Prokopchuk will beat his South Korean rival Kim Jong-yang due to the level of support among the agency’s member states and “in spite of concerns that Moscow has been using the international policing agency to target political opponents”.

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The paper says Prokopchuk’s appointment “would represent a significant victory for the Kremlin after criticism of the Russian state for abusing the agency’s “red notice” system” while Voice of America warns “it could encourage Moscow to intensify attempts to hunt down its critics abroad”.

One long-standing Kremlin target, Moscow-based investment banker Bill Browder, has told the Associated Press: “If a Russian were to become head of Interpol, I think that will put the organisation in grave danger of being fully discredited.”

Oligarch turned dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky has also voiced concern, telling reporters in London that “appointing a member of Russia’s criminalised security apparatus to head Interpol will undermine its values and signal to governments across the world that the Russian state’s abuses of the law are acceptable. It will also delay much-needed reform of the organisation that is now under way.”

Kamran Bokhari for The Independent asks: “As the Kremlin tramples on any pretense of the agency’s neutrality, how will the West (and especially Europe) respond – and protect its citizens from the wrath of Putin’s new global police force, headed by a loyal general?”

In the UK, The Guardian reports that the government is under pressure from across the political spectrum to “rethink the UK’s involvement” in Interpol if Prokopchuk is elected.

Amid concern from Labour and the Lib Dems, Tory MP Tom Tugendhat, who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee, said he was alarmed by the prospect of Prokopchuk winning.

“This is really quite an extraordinary situation, to find ourselves with the possibility of not just a fox in charge of the hen coop, but actually the assassin in charge of the murder investigation.”

Using a similar analogy, US senators Jeanne Shaheen, Roger Wicker, Chris Coons and Marco Rubio have urged members of Interpol’s General Assembly to reject Prokopchuk’s candidacy.

“Interpol electing Major General Alexander Prokopchuk as its new president is akin to putting a fox in charge of a henhouse,” they said. “Russia routinely abuses Interpol for the purpose of settling scores and harassing political opponents, dissidents and journalists.”

The Kremlin, meanwhile, has denounced western “interference” in the Interpol vote.

“This is interference in the election process of sorts, in the election to an international organisation,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

“What else can you call it? This is a vivid example.”