Al-Emadi will face criminal trial following his arrest in 2021 on embezzlement charges.
Qatar’s former finance minister Ali Sherif al-Emadi will face criminal trial following his 2021 arrest over embezzlement charges.
Al-Emadi was arrested in May 2021, but little has been made public about his case. He will face trial along with an undetermined number of others over the charges, the state-run Qatar News Agency (QNA) said in a brief statement on Sunday.
“Since evidence from the pleadings showed that the defendants had committed the crimes attributed to them, the Attorney General issued an order to refer the defendants to the Criminal Court to punish them for the crimes attributed to them, including bribery, appropriation of public money, abuse of office, abuse of power, damage to public money and money laundering,” the QNA report said.
The report did not address how much money the former minister is accused of stealing.
Al-Emadi rose to prominence in the Gulf Arab emirate when the current emir ascended to the throne and after overseeing the transformation of Qatar National Bank into the largest lender in the Middle East.
Once one of Qatar’s most powerful officials, Al-Emadi also served as chairman of the bank, a member of the board of directors of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund and chairman of the board of directors of Qatar Airways.
Al-Emadi has not publicly commented on the matter.
Reuters news agency reported that Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani has said the investigation is related to his capacity as finance minister, not his posts in the state fund or bank.
