With the U.S. taking the lead at the last minute, delegates to the General Assembly of Interpol voted early Wednesday morning to defeat one of Vladimir Putin’s top lieutenants in his bid for the presidency of the worldwide crime-fighting organization.
By a vote of 101 to 61 at their meeting in Dubai, Interpol delegates elected former South Korean police official Kim Jong Yang as their new president over former Russian Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Prokopchuk.
Prokopchuk, long the subject of charges he oversaw state-run bullying of private businessmen who clashed with the Putin government.
But even after securing the defeating of Prokopchuk, many of his opponents made clear they wanted to go further and expel Russia from the 95-year-old Interpol.
"I think [Russia’s] record of abuse suggests that they don't deserve a place at that organization," said Michael McFaul, who served as Barack Obama’s ambassador to Moscow from 2012 to 2014.
McFaul’s call for expelling Russia from the 192 member-nations of Interpol was seconded by William Browder, an American businessman whose long-running tax dispute with the Russian government led to the Magnitsky sanctions now placed by the U.S. on numerous Kremlin officials.
Browder and longtime Putin targets Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Vladimir Kara-Murza (who has survived two poisonings), all had called for the rejection of Prokopchuk.
Forty-eight hours before Interpol delegates voted on electing a president, sources in the U.S. State Department made clear to Newsmax that they were opposed to Prokopchuk’s candidacy.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo formally endorsed former South Korean police official Kim Jong Yang as the new Interpol president.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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