But Karaziwan is not a politician or a professional diplomat or a native of the Comoros. He’s an international businessman, born in Syria and a citizen of Belgium, whose company Semlex Group has supplied and made passports or other ID documents for the Comoros and over a dozen other African nations.
A Reuters examination of Semlex emails, corporate records and signed contracts found that Karaziwan has won business in the Comoros and elsewhere in Africa – on paper worth hundreds of millions of dollars – through political connections, sometimes without going through open tender processes and sometimes while making payments to intermediaries.
At the same time, presidential decrees and other documents from the Comoros shed new light on how Comoros passports, supplied by Semlex, are being bought by foreign citizens, some of whom are suspected by Comoros and foreign authorities of being security threats. Reuters determined that at least two buyers of Comoros passports are people accused by U.S. authorities of breaking sanctions against Iran.
Karaziwan’s political links are remarkable. In the Comoros, where Semlex first won a contract to supply passports and other documents in 2007, he was made a special adviser and roving ambassador by former president Ahmed Abdallah Mohammed Sambi. At least eight of his staff and associates acquired Comoros honorary consulships, according to Comoros government documents reviewed by Reuters. The honorary consulships, nominated between 2010 and 2012, ranged from Mombasa to Monaco.
On receiving questions from Reuters, Sambi indicated he would answer but did not respond by the time of publication.
Karaziwan is listed on a Comoros government database as having three current Comoros passports. The database shows his Belgian wife, Catherine Laurent, was issued with a Comoros diplomatic passport in 2010, and that their 27-year-old son, Alexandre, who works for an IT consultancy in Brussels, also has one. Some Semlex staff were also issued with them.
Reuters was unable to determine why the Comoros granted these credentials or why the Karaziwans and Semlex associates may have sought them. In general, according to law enforcement officials, such passports and consular nominations facilitate travel, open doors and, in some cases, make doing business easier.
Source: Reuters
