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The pressure on Interpol before the vote to choose a new leader for the international police agency, US senators and others, warning against the possibility that a senior official of the Russian Ministry of Interior becomes the new head of the agency.
British media announced that Major General Aleksandr Prokopchuk, 56, would likely be elected, despite allegations that Moscow used Interpol's procedures to pursue its political enemies.
Police chiefs gathered in the city of Dubai, in the Gulf, were to vote on a new leader at their November 21 meeting.
The agency, headquartered in Lyon, France, acts as a clearinghouse for national police services who want to track suspects outside their borders. The agency does not have the ability to arrest people.
Critics of the agency have warned that some countries are using it more and more to pursue politically motivated prosecutions using what is called "red notices". There are alerts from Interpol to member states that identify suspects wanted to be arrested by another country.
Two days before the planned vote, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry promised to seek the suspension of his country's membership if Prokopchuk was elected.
"The possible Russian presidency of Interpol is absurd and goes against the spirit and objectives of this organization," Arsen Avakov said in a statement November 19th.
Avakov's remarks are related to the strong tensions between Moscow and Kiev over Russia's annexation in 2014 of the Crimea region in Ukraine and its support for the separatists in a war in the east of the country. # 39; Ukraine.
The question of the possibility of Russia assuming control of the agency was condemned by a bipartisan group of US senators, including Republicans Marco Rubio and Roger Wicker, as well as Democrats Jeanne Shaheen and Chris Coons.
"Interpol to elect … Prokopchuk as new president, is to entrust to a fox the responsibility of a henhouse", the group said in a letter. "Russia regularly abuses Interpol for the purpose of settling accounts and harassing political opponents, dissidents and journalists."
She was also condemned by Russian activist Aleksei Navalny, who faced a series of detentions and criminal prosecutions, which he and his supporters described as political motivations. He added that his collaborators "have been abused" by Interpol officials who have complied with Russian mandates to persecute opponents of the Kremlin.
"I do not think that a Russian president will help reduce such violations," he said in a message posted on Twitter.
Vladimir Kara-Murza, a militant of the Russian opposition, said in a Washington Post opinion piece that Russia might abuse the "red notice" system if Prokopchuk was to resume the agency.
"The main purpose of the organization is the sharing of information and mutual assistance between the national police forces.It can be imagined what the Kremlin could do with the access to sensitive databases around the world ", he wrote.
The November 21 vote is to replace Meng Hongwei, who was China's vice minister of public security, and went missing during a trip to China in September.
Beijing later said that he had been arrested as part of a general cleansing against alleged corrupt or disloyal officials under President Xi Jinping's authoritarian administration.
The Interpol General Assembly will also consider the accession of several countries, including Kosovo.
Accepting Kosovo as a full member would, inter alia, allow Pristina to issue Red Notices to the Serbian authorities that Kosovo considers to be war criminals.
Two years ago, Interpol put in place new measures to strengthen the legal framework around the red notice system after being criticized for abusive use by governments to take bribes. political enemies and to dissidents.
As part of the amendments, an international team of lawyers and experts first verifies the compliance of a notice with Interpol rules and regulations prior to publication.
