Ali Bin Jassen Al Thani, the ambassador of Qatar to Paris since October 2018, has taken Tariq Ramadan’s threats against the emirate very badly, suggesting that he may reveal to the media his past links with the gas emirate.
Here are the main extracts from the document mentioned in our exclusive investigation on the corruption related to oil rent in Algeria.
As a follow-up to our investigation into the corruption scandals of the Algerian oil company Sonatrach, in connection with the Bouteflika clan, we have received a “special report” on a financial investigation into an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands, under the name of Sonatrach Petroleum Corporation, which would serve as a financial parachute allowing 15 personalities, whose identities are not revealed in this confidential document, to share a gigantic jackpot from the Algerian oil rent !
Paris is considering appointing a new ambassador to Algiers to replace Xavier Driencourt, who was criticised by the new Algerian government for the “too great influence” he has acquired in recent years in circles close to the Bouteflika clan.
For a long time, the Doha authorities’ defence strategy, faced with increasing revelations about the involvement of many Qatari dignitaries in terrorist financing scandals, has been to describe them as individual initiatives that do not represent the government.
As part of the exchange of information between the CIA and the North Korean secret services and following the last meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, the North Koreans revealed to the Americans that they had delivered no less than 6,000 submarine mines to Iran over a period of 15 years.
The Moroccan financial brigade is investigating the accounts of Intra Conseil, a company owned by Alexandre Benalla and based in Marrakech.
After having previously written two books about the less brilliant aspects of Qatari politics, entitled “Qatar, The Secrets of The Safe” (Michel Lafon, 2013) and “Our Very Dear Emirs” (Michel Lafon, 2016), Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot return with a hard-hitting book entitled “Qatar Papers – How the State Finances Islam in France and Europe”.
The head of the Elysée diplomatic cell, Phillippe Étienne, is appointed ambassador to Washington. He is replaced at the Palais by Emmanuel Bonne, who until then was Jean-Yves Le Drian’s chief of staff at the Quai d’Orsay.
American journalist and essayist, Theo Padnos was abducted and imprisoned for 22 months by the jihadists of the Al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. During his captivity, he was subjected to various forms of torture, including waterboarding, as made famous by the CIA’s “intense interrogations” carried out in Guantanamo, and gruesome staged scenes aimed at making him believe that he would be hung or buried alive. Yet he remained hopeful, convinced that he would be freed: as he understood Arabic, he got into the habit of discreetly listening to his jailers’ conversations. He thus came to understand that his captors had previously concluded a secret agreement with the Qataris aimed at obtaining financing under the guise of getting Doha to pay a ransom for his release!
