Rachida Dati, the pen in the (secret) service of Qatar

service of Qatar

While she was an MEP, the now Minister of Culture worked her ass off for a major cause: promoting Qatar and its henchman in Europe. Now Minister of Labour and president of the ILO's annual conference in 2023, Dr Al Marri is the main suspect in the corruption scandal involving elected representatives in the European Parliament. Revelations.

At the age of 59, Rachida Dati, the Minister of Culture, has already had a busy professional and public life: magistrate, adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy and then spokesperson for his 2007 presidential campaign, minister on two occasions (the first from 2007 to 2009, at the Department of Justice), mayor of the very chic 7th arrondissement in Paris, Member of the European Parliament. Not to mention her lucrative activities as a lawyer and consultant, which have landed her in trouble with the law (see inset).

In short, a triple or quadruple life in one. And we thought we already knew everything. Yet a whole section of his activities has remained secret until now. A piece of her professional life that has flown under the radar, which Blast is able to reveal thanks to exclusive documents: notes, letters or drafts (of letters) that she wrote or had written when she was a member of the European Parliament in the ranks of the European People's Party (EPP).

Small (and large) jobs for an MEP.

Life in Brussels or Strasbourg wasn't enough to fill all her diary when she was in exile far from Paris, so the former Keeper of the Seals turned herself into a public writer and public relations adviser for... Qatar! More precisely, in the service of a dignitary very high up in the hierarchy of the gas emirate: Dr Ali bin Samikh Al Marri.

This name will probably mean nothing to most people. Yet Al Marri is the key man in the Qatarargate scandal, the attempted corruption that came to light at the end of 2022 after a spectacular police raid and images of suitcases of cash found in the homes of MEPs and a vice-president of the Parliament. 

The first document establishing the closeness of the current Minister of Culture to the Emir's collaborator, who was in charge of the thorny issue of human rights at the time, was not written by the former MEP. It is a letter signed by a Geneva criminal lawyer.

Letter to that "Very dear Rachida"

In Switzerland, Maître Marc Bonnant is at the confluence of several networks, media and political. On 10 December 2018, the lawyer thanked his "very dear Rachida". "I have indeed received the documentation sent to me on Ali bin Saeed Al Samikh (sic), his biography, his works," confirms Mr Bonnant. I have sent it (sic) to a few journalists to whom I may be close, drawing their attention to the importance of what Mr Ali bin Saeed Al Samikh (sic) is doing and inviting them to report on it, which they will probably do at a forthcoming event."

While these few lines may seem trivial to the reader, the contents of this letter are nonetheless loaded with nitroglycerine. Let's put it as it is: a leading member of the Geneva Bar thanks a French MEP for the documentation he has received on the merits of a Qatari hierarch and offers to write articles praising him...

To get the full measure of what is at stake here, we need to add: a few years later, the beneficiary of these delicate attentions, the good Qatari doctor, found himself at the heart of a huge corruption scandal, the target of an international arrest warrant (1), involving the European Parliament... where his protector sat... who is now a minister in the French government, while at the same time being... under investigation for corruption in a case linked to the European Parliament (see the box entitled Une Dati, des enquêtes), and while her name is also mentioned in another high-profile case linked to Qatar, where her correspondent is now one of the main ministers..

 

Member of the European Parliament Dati with Dr Al Marri, in December 2018 in Doha, in defence of human rights in Qatar. An important cause. Document Blast

In December 2022, after the Belgian judiciary launched its anti-corruption operation by striking at the heart of the European institutions and its Parliament, its President Roberta Metsola had these words: "European democracy is under attack". At the opening plenary session, her voice trembling, she confided her "fury", "anger" and "sadness". What will she say in the face of our revelations?

When Dati thanks Belloubet and Ferrand

The information unearthed by Blast does not stop at this simple letter of thanks, in which Rachida Dati appears to be acting as a sort of top-of-the-range communications or press attaché on behalf of Dr Al Marri. The work carried out by the MEP and her investment on behalf of the Qatari regime's hierarch go much further.

The other documents we are revealing were sent by the current occupant of the rue de Valois to the man in charge of delicate missions in Doha. At the time, in 2019, Ali bin Saeed bin Samikh Al Marri was the director of his country's National Human Rights Committee. He is mobilised on a task of the utmost importance: it involves stifling the scandal of the construction of football stadiums for the 2022 World Cup by organising the corruption of the ILO in the process, to prevent any serious investigation as Blast has already reported. 

First there is a draft: the outline of a letter addressed to Nicole Belloubet, the Minister of Justice in the Philippe government. It is signed by Dr Al Marri.

Let's stress this: this draft letter from Dr Al Marri is addressed to her by Rachida Dati. What does it say? Here it is. While thanking the French Minister of Education, Gabriel Attal, for having received him so kindly, the Qatari reiterated his invitation to come to Doha to continue their discussions. I am aware of your attachment to human rights and the principles of the rule of law," says the author of the draft letter. For this reason, I felt that our meeting was of the utmost importance in order to inform you of the work of Qatar's National Committee for Human Rights and to alert you to the many human rights violations faced by Qatari citizens as a result of the crisis in the Gulf.

The letter, or rather the draft of it, ends with an engaging greeting. "Allow me to take the opportunity of this letter to reiterate my invitation to you to come to Doha. Madam Minister, you will always be most welcome in Qatar.

The art of correspondence requires an apprenticeship. It can't be improvised, especially when it comes to diplomacy, a field with its own codes and where every word is weighed up. No doubt diplomats and politicians in charge of these matters call on the help of assistants, chargés de mission or secretaries. But it is unusual to find a former minister chewing the fat and tutoring the representative of a foreign state. Especially to write to the person who succeeded her in the government chair - the Keeper of the Seals - that she once occupied.

It's at the very least peculiar, not to say anachronistic, even if it is a letter of thanks. One could even smile and imagine an aside about this famous letter between the two colleagues, Rachida and Nicole, around the government table.

But the embarrassment grows when we discover, in another document revealed by Blast, that this secretarial activity of MEP Rachida Dati is repeated. In the same vein, this time it involves writing and sending a missive to the Palais Bourbon. It was addressed to another leading figure in the President's camp: Richard Ferrand, then President of the National Assembly.

On this letter (this draft), we find the same formulas and the same words. After all, when you master your art, you duplicate it: "I am aware of your attachment, as well as that of the French State, to human rights and the principles of the rule of law. For this reason, I felt that our meeting was of the utmost importance in order to present to you the role of the National Human Rights Committee of Qatar, which I have the honour of chairing", the scribe recites. As I have explained to you, Qatar is facing a crisis in the Gulf and its citizens are being subjected to numerous human rights violations. I know that I can count on your support in dealing with this situation. The addressee changes, but the letter also ends with an invitation, worded a little less warmly and more ceremoniously: "Allow me, Mr President, to take this opportunity to invite you to come to Doha to deepen our cooperation and discuss these issues again.

It's not just in small secretarial jobs, execution, typing or letter writing that tutoring from the Frenchwoman is indispensable. The same is true when it comes to ideas. Blast discovered two briefing notes prepared by Rachida Dati on the borderline between intelligence, analysis and economic intelligence. And again sent to her honourable correspondent in Doha.

The Dati tutorials.

They are about a boiling hot subject. They concern Qatar's sworn and official enemy: the United Arab Emirates. The first of these two notes has a sober title: "The military intervention of the United Arab Emirates in Libya and Somalia". Over 4 dense pages, it details the role attributed to Dubai in these areas of great tension, to put it in diplomatic terms. An open-source analysis.

The second of these illuminating reports looks at "The United Arab Emirates' relations with the far right in Europe". It begins with a lengthy analysis of the revelations in the book Marine est au courant de tout (Flammarion) by our colleagues Marine Turchi and Mathias Destal, which lists points of strategic convergence between the FN and the UAE. After this reader's piece, the analysis for Doha focuses on a European Parliament resolution condemning the detention of Ahmed Mansoor - a human rights activist imprisoned in the United Kingdoms.

As you can see, a (French) Member of the European Parliament is providing a Qatari leader with analyses and insights - some of which concern European decisions - as well as holding the feather in her cap and writing letters of thanks. Baroque in itself. But by delving into the metadata of these documents, Blast made another discovery. Something even more disturbing.

In good intelligence and at the expense of the European taxpayer

The computer files of the drafts of the letters to Nicolas Belloubet and Richard Ferrand, like the two analyses devoted to the United Arab Emirates, were designed and amended in April 2019 by... parliamentary assistants to Rachida Dati. And they were created on computers made available to her office by the European Parliament.

Two details that are anything but trivial. To appreciate this, we need to look at some of the rules governing the management of the assembly that legislates on behalf of the European Union. Once elected in Brussels and Strasbourg, each MEP is allocated the means to fulfil and exercise their mandate: they are allocated three offices - one for themselves and two for their assistants - paid for by the institution; the Parliament also provides workstations and, on request, laptops and mobile tablets, and even company telephones; lastly, the salaries of the MEPs' assistants are paid directly by the Parliament. These resources are drawn from the European budget so that MEPs can work in good conditions on their parliamentary duties. But they must be used strictly for this sole purpose.

Any other use of Parliament's resources for work other than the parliamentary mandate is fraud," Green MEP Daniel Freund tells Blast. In the event of an offence, the MEP can be ordered to repay the sums due, the anti-fraud office (OLAF, editor's note) can be called in, and even the courts.

The 2014 alert

A former head of Transparency International, responsible for monitoring the operation and integrity of the European institutions, and himself a former parliamentary attaché, in 2014 Daniel Freund drafted notes for the attention of Gerald Häfner - the MEP for whom he worked, then a member of the Advisory Committee on the Conduct of Members of Parliament. They concerned... Rachida Dati.

Under no circumstances.

"At the time, we wondered about her links with Azerbaijan and her votes on EU energy policy. But she told us that her clients were all individuals, mainly women, and not states or representatives of states. And that under no circumstances was she in a conflict of interest. The investigation went no further.

Ten years on, the situation is different. These issues, interference and the use of Parliament's resources - in France in particular, with the MoDem, RN and LFI parliamentary assistant cases - have become major concerns. On which the European institutions can no longer turn a blind eye. They are also being forced to be more vigilant under pressure from the courts. Qatargate and suspicions of Russian and Chinese foreign interference have all come to the fore.

Against this backdrop, the documents revealed by Blast once again highlight the porous relationship between Qatari diplomacy and European and even national authorities. Like his devoted correspondent in France, who not only promoted him but also used her assistants and the resources of the European Parliament to provide him with notes, advice and letters, Dr Ali bin Saeed bin Samikh Al-Marri has now become a Qatari minister - one of the most important in the Doha government since October 2021. And above all (and also) the main target of the Belgian police and judicial authorities in the Qatargate affair.

As far as the Minister for Culture is concerned, these elements and this circuit bear witness to a certain idea of the general interest and sovereignty, both French and European. Mme Dati's own singular idea.

Source of article
https://www.blast-info.fr/articles/2024/exclu-blast-rachida-dati-la-plume-au-service-secret-du-qatar-jjxMjmNlQZmSY4G8CRBInQ