Kim Hjelmgaard USA TODAY Published 3:49 AM EST Nov 21, 2018 LONDON – The global law-enforcement group Interpol elected South Korea’s Kim Jong-yang as its new president Wednesday. Kim’s election averts a crisis in the international police body because it thwarts efforts by Russia to lead Interpol. Kim was chosen by a vote among Interpol’s 194 member countries – every country in the world with the exception of North Korea – during a general assembly in Dubai. Kim, 57, will serve a two-year term. Russian national Alexander Prokopchuck, a senior general who for the past 12 years has been the head of Moscow’s national Interpol bureau, part of Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, was widely tipped to win the post. Prokopchuck is close to the Kremlin and has been accused of routinely abusing Interpol’s Red Notice system – global arrest warrants – to target critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The prospect of a Russian sitting atop the international police organization raised red flags in Washington and among critics of the Kremlin who believed Putin would have further tried to aggressively influence Interpol to go after his political opponents. “I can’t imagine a more inappropriate person” for Interpol, Bill Browder, an American businessman and prominent Putin foe, told reporters in London on Tuesday, speaking of Prokopchuck. “And I can’t imagine a more inappropriate country.” Browder is responsible for pushing successful congressional passage of the Magnitsky Act, which imposes sanctions against government officials who commit human-rights abuses. The Magnitsky Act was used recently to sanction 17 Saudi nationals accused of murdering the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. It has also… [Read full story]
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