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Qatar whistleblower Abdullah Ibhais has been arrested in Jordan two weeks before he is scheduled to testify as a witness in a US District Court case concerning allegations of forced labour and human trafficking associated with the 2022 World Cup.
Ibhais, a Jordanian national, spent three years in a Doha jail following what Amnesty International described an “unfair trial”, with his version being that he went to investigate complaints over workers’ rights, stood up for them by advising the Supreme Committee to acknowledge its role, and found himself the subject of a malicious prosecution. FairSquare say Ibhais provided plenty of evidence for his case.
The version from within Qatar points to Ibhais’s April 2021 conviction for “bribery”, “violation of the integrity of tenders and profits” and “intentional damage to public funds”.
He was finally released on 11 March 2025 after his five-year sentence was reduced, but he now finds himself in the subject of law enforcement again after being “abducted from the mosque” by the Jordanian General Intelligence Directorate (GID) in the capital city of Amman, his family told The Independent.
It’s said Ibhais was arrested in front of his two children. To the family’s knowledge, there was no arrest warrant, and no attorney has been allowed to contact him.
Ibhais is due to have a voluntary deposition in the United States on 20 August and received his visa on 6 August at the US Embassy in Amman. He had subpoenaed for the deposition by the Court of Colarado.
His family say that Ibhais has been “threatened with prison before by GID officers, if he insisted to continue his advocacy concerning his case, or concerning the issue of workers conditions in Qatar”.
It’s added Ibhais has previously confronted his GID interrogators over allegedly acting upon a Qatari request, which they never denied or challenged him on.
Forces have allegedly made efforts to arrest Ibhais in May, searching his home before officers were said to have received a phone call and subsequently left the premises.
Abdullah Ibhais spent three years in a Doha jail until his release in March 2025 (Supplied)
Ibhais also had his passport confiscated for two months between May and July this year, which his family alleges was “in order ban him from taking place in the same deposition that was supposed to take place virtually in the US Embassy in Norway, on 30 May 2026”.
He was then unable to make a formal meeting in Washington DC with Massachusetts congressman James McGovern on 17 June, which he had been invited to attend. McGovern sent an updated letter renewing his invitation for Ibhais, which regretted the continued holding of his passport by Jordanian authorities.
Ibhais was also supposed to participate in the Oslo Freedom Forum, organised by the Human Rights Foundation at the beginning of June.
