A Geneva company at the heart of a vast operation to influence the United Arab Emirates – rts.ch

For years and everywhere in Europe, including Switzerland, the Geneva-based company Alp Services targeted people or organizations suspected of being close to Qatar or the Muslim Brotherhood movement. This is revealed by confidential documents obtained by Mediapart and shared with the media consortium European Investigative Collaborations (EIC)of which the RTS is a part, also in collaboration with Heidi.News and the ROI.

Founded in 1989, Alp Services has worked for more than thirty years in the secret world of economic and political intelligence. As shown by internal documents at Alp Services obtained following a data leak, the director of the company and his team are preparing an action plan for a mysterious client that we will call Mohammed* in the course of 2017. Communications with him are via encrypted emails, as the latter is, according to EIC research, an agent of the intelligence services of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Code names: Arnica, Quino, Narcissus, Crocus

The operation is validated by agent Mohammed and his superior, Sheikh Ali Saeed al-Neyadi, a member of the high echelons of Emirati power. The objective is to target two of the main pet peeves of the Abu Dhabi regime: Qatar, its political and economic rival, and the Muslim Brotherhood organization, considered by the emirate to be a terrorist group.

In a Powerpoint presentation aimed at Agent Mohammed, Alp Services promises to “seriously damage” the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe by identifying their network and figureheads, “attacking them in the media” and influencing policy makers.

“We will launch very aggressive and confidential online campaigns”, can we read in particular in another document dated August 2017. “We will seek to discredit our targets by discreetly and subtly disseminating negative but truthful information”, further Alp Services.

The “Arnica” operation was launched in the summer of 2017. It will be renewed for six months in six months and successively baptized “Quino”, “Narcissus” or “Crocus”. As invoices and internal documents show, between 2017 and 2020, the Geneva company would have received more than 5 million francs for this Emirati mandate.

Workflow

Concretely, Alp Services will start by tracking down all the people and organizations allegedly close or linked to the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe or having links with Qatar. The employees of the Geneva company rake wide: they file lawyers, human rights defenders, businessmen and researchers, Muslim associations and humanitarian or charitable NGOs of the Muslim faith, or even companies but also some proven jihadists.

Alp Services has therefore compiled more than 1000 names, addresses and sometimes even mobile phone numbers of people living in Switzerland, France, Belgium, England, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Austria. This massive amount of disparate data will be delivered to the Abu Dhabi Secret Service in the form of infographics.

Targets in Switzerland

We find in these cards some well-known names in French-speaking Switzerland, such as that of Pascal Gemperli, secretary general of the Vaudois Union of Muslim Associations (UVAM). Alp Services wanted to know what its possible links were with the Muslim Brotherhood.

I am shocked that I could end up in such a document obviously in an act of espionage of a third State by a Swiss company and that it could go so far as to associate me with terrorism and to put me next to people more than controversial, it’s a guilt by association that is shocking and it can really hurt

Their conclusion: “he seems to know a lot of Muslim Brotherhood (…) but we cannot consider that he is one”, can we read in a report written in 2019. Contacted by RTS, Pascal Gemperli said he was “shocked “.

“I am shocked that I could end up in such a document obviously in an act of espionage of a third State by a Swiss company and that it could go so far as to associate me with terrorism and to put me next to more than controversial people, it’s a guilt by association that is shocking and it can really hurt”.

My assertive but not naive support for democratic peoples and processes and my criticism of corrupt and autocratic Arab states probably explain why I am the target of the UAE, among others.

Another personality who appears on the infographics of Alp Services: the Islamologist Tariq Ramadan. He is the grandson of the founding father of the Muslim Brotherhood.

“I have always assumed this heritage,” replied Tariq Ramadan by e-mail. “[Mais] I am neither a member nor close to this organization. I have written numerous articles critical of [d’elle]“, underlines the Islamologist.

He understands that the intelligence services of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been targeting him especially since the Arab Spring, namely as early as 2010. probably explain why I am the target of the UAE, among others,” he continues.

On the NGO side, it is in particular the Alkarama foundation established in Geneva that will interest Alp Services. Also in the sights of the UAE for a long time, the organization active in the defense of human rights in the Gulf countries will be the subject of several reports by Alp Services. These documents present the organization as being financed by Qatar and having among its founders two people listed by the United States as being terrorists. So many elements rejected by the current director of Alkarama, Rachid Mesli.

From monitoring…

In addition to this vast collection of data, the Geneva company will propose to Emirati intelligence to target certain profiles and subject them to much more invasive measures. These cases are the subject of specific notes or reports.

For example, this human rights activist who, between 2017 and 2018, denounced before the UN in Geneva the attacks on freedoms and fundamental rights in the UAE. At the same time, she will be followed and photographed without her knowledge for a whole morning in a French-speaking town. The outside of his home will also be photographed. “I am not surprised by the action of this State, known for its relentlessness against human rights defenders”, she reacted by email. “I am rather worried that this could happen on the territory of a rule of law like Switzerland and with such impunity.”

There is also the case of this lawyer, described by Alp Services as being the “defender of the Muslim Brotherhood in Switzerland”. His accommodation is photographed and his associative and commercial activities dissected by the staff of Alp Services. Or this other lawyer in Geneva, whose record of calls will end up in the hands of the Geneva company and therefore of Abu Dhabi. Neither of them wanted to react.

…to the disinformation campaign

But Alp Services does not stop there. In many European countries, it launches all-out disinformation campaigns. The modus operandi is always the same: Alp Services writes blog articles mixing the true with the false, sends biased information to journalists, and modifies Wikipedia pages or influences search results on Google. The company argues that a particular person or organization is either close to the Muslim Brotherhood, or linked to terrorists, or financed by Qatar, or all of the above.

This is what happened to businessman Hazim Nada. The American magazine New Yorker recently echoed it. Alp Services has cast doubt on the objectives of its company Lord Energy, established in Lugano in the canton of Ticino. This company has now gone bankrupt.

Also in Switzerland, Nicolas Blancho, the president of the Central Islamic Council, was also targeted by a smear campaign, presenting him as a dangerous extremist, close to the Qatari authorities. Although Nicolas Blancho has certainly been condemned by federal justice for propaganda in favor of Al-Qaeda, the latter vigorously rejects the shortcuts disseminated by Alp Services: “It is obviously worrying and problematic that a company collects, discloses information and attempts to initiate defamation campaigns on behalf of a foreign state under cover of its commercial activities”.

>> Read also: Lighter sentences for two members of the Swiss Islamic Central Council

Elsewhere in Europe, Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), a Muslim humanitarian organization, has also been the subject of a disinformation campaign. “The main impact of these baseless allegations has been to delay or disrupt life-saving humanitarian assistance to some of the world’s most vulnerable people,” the IRW press office said. As can be seen in numerous e-mails and reports, Alp Services will boast more than once to the Emirati agent Mohammed of having destroyed reputations and complicated the financial situation of some of its targets.

Silence from Alp Services and Abu Dhabi

It is unclear whether the UAE still pays Alp Services for such influence operations. Contacted, the director of Alp Services refused to answer all of our questions. His lawyers in Geneva speak of stolen and partly falsified documents.

“Most of the facts which constitute the premises of your questions are based on erroneous postulates and/or implausible rantings”, they note again in a letter sent on July 4th. The United Arab Emirates are walled in silence.

As they told us, some victims of this operation plan to take legal action, particularly in France. Asked about the activities of Alp Services on behalf of the United Arab Emirates, the Public Prosecutor of the Confederation declined to comment.

As for the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, responsible for monitoring private security companies established in Switzerland, it indicates that so far it has received “no declaration [ndlr, d’une entreprise] where a foreign State was the principal or the final recipient”.

*assumed first name

Marc Menichini/fgn with the EIC (notably Mediapart, Der Spiegel, Le Soir, De Standaard, NRC) and Heidi.News/RSI/Domani/Daraj Media