Asadullah Khalid, the former Afghan Intelligence Chief has been accused by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting (OCCRP) in the reports, who allegedly obtained citizenship of Dominica.
In their report, OCCRP is straight out questioning Dominica’s CBI programme, CBI(Citizenship by Investment) is the programme under which citizenship is provided to the persons who qualify their certain conditions.
Notably, OCCRP in their report talked about US being the biggest critic of CBI programmes, but it miserably failed to show the close relationship of Khalid with the US in their report, they failed to highlight the close alliance of Khalid with former US President, Barack Obama.
In fact, then President Obama visited Khalid at a Virgina Hospital in 2012, but OCCRP ignored to mention even that too. They did not even give a reference to the fact that in the 1990s Khalid was a member of the anti-Taliban resistance when he came into contact with the US.
It has also been noted in the report that he has been initially got accused of violating human rights, which has still not been proved in a court of law. This is simply a misleading report which is giving inaccurate and incomplete information. It is purely evident how they are spreading partial information.
OCCRP’s report also acclaimed that nearly 7,700 inhabitants were granted citizenship of Dominica since 2007. They have been granted citizenship not just through the CBI programme but also through marriage and various other aspects.
OCCRP, in the report identified 26 persons who had indirect connections with crime and corruption. However, those 26 members were not even charged with any crime while obtaining citizenship from Dominica. They even failed to notice the major aspect that the citizenships of 260 citizens had already revoked by the Government of Dominica due to the misrepresentation of facts submitted by applicants.
There were also speculations that those 26 inhabitants could also be among those who have been revoked. These inappropriate findings raise many concerns about how inaccurate research has been published by the OCCRP.
Moreover, the report also states that Until July 2023, interviews were not compulsory, however, this assertion is purely misleading. As Dominica was actually the first nation which took the initiative of making the interviews mandatory for the applicants.
Such false tentatives in reporting underline how important it is to publish accurate information.
OCCRP report mentioned that second citizenship provides security to the people those residing in oppressive regimes ( this point relates to the wider European region, allowing thousands of refugees to come from countries with oppressive regimes).
Continuing with this narrative, this report’s credibility has been questioned by local media, especially by Associate Times. Last week itself, this local media revealed chat images between Dominica’s opposition party UWP worker and , Trevor Tossy Johnson, and other international media organisations.
In the chats revealed, it is alleged that Johnson confessed being in communication with the international media groups which clearly suspects that it is the opposition party’s influence over the report which has been published by OCCRP.
However, how authentic these reports are, has still not been verified, but such revelations have led to the major suspicions that few individuals already had knowledge of the international journalist’s intention to publish a story on Dominica’s CBI programme.
Christian Henrik Neshim, the founder of IMI also questioned the Guardian and said, Long story short: “After months of investigations into the tens of thousands of citizenships historically granted by Dominica, the Guardian found that two individuals who had “ allegations” (no convictions or even trials) against them; three individuals who obtained citizenship many years BEFORE becoming wanted men”.
“A single individual who had a prior conviction and therefore should not have received citizenship in Dominica- 19 years ago!”
“In other words, the investigative reporters found ONE legitimate oversight from among a selection of tens of thousands, and its from two decades ago.”
Grasping at straws, in his opinion he said, “The Guardian, please try running a similar investigation on the 827,000 people who received EU citizenship in ordinary ways in 2021 and see if you find the same infinitesimal fraction of criminals. I’ll wait”
