Former Qatar 2022 employee facing fresh legal action over loan payments

A former employee of Qatar’s 2022 World Cup organising committee, jailed on contested corruption charges, faces fresh legal action after his former bosses withheld his severance pay meaning he will default on a loan, his family say.

Abdullah Ibhais, a former media manager, was last year given a three-year sentence for misappropriating state funds – a charge that he insists was concocted as punishment for him criticising the handling of a migrant workers’ strike.

Now Ibhais faces the prospect of a new lawsuit, and possibly a further prison sentence, relating to a bank loan that he can no longer service because money owed to him at the end of his employment was not paid. Ibhais and his family claim that withholding funds amounts to applying financial pressure, as he continues to claim his imprisonment stemmed from his views on the treatment of migrant labourers.

The case has attracted widespread international attention since Ibhais, a Jordanian national, was found guilty of corruption last August. It has also shone a fresh light on the conditions faced by workers who have built Qatar’s World Cup stadiums over the past six years. Ibhais lost an appeal against his conviction in December and has continued to protest his innocence.

A Qatari judge claimed Ibhais received a bribe when offering a tender for a social media contract. However, no evidence was submitted to the court that found him guilty. The evidence supporting his conviction was a confession made by Ibhais, which he has since retracted.

Qatari officials deny any political element to the verdict and claim due process was followed in the trial and that more evidence exists that has been tabled in court.

Documents obtained by the Dutch newspaper NRC show that the