Rashad Al-Alimi, during his tenure as Minister of Interior in 2006, signed the border demarcation agreement with Saudi Arabia
A decade following his presidency of Yemen, Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi announced from his exile in Saudi Arabia the formation of an eight-member Presidential Leadership Council headed by Rashad Al-Alimi, and relinquished all his powers to the council. He also dismissed his deputy, Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar.
The announcement came following Yemeni talks in Riyadh aimed at bolstering UN-led efforts to revive political negotiations and end the seven-year civil war.
Who is Rashad Al Alimi?
Dr. Rashad Muhammad Al-Alimi was born in 1954 in a village in the Taiz Governorate in the south of the country. He was initially educated by his father, Judge Muhammad bin Ali Al-Alimi, and then completed his secondary education in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a.
Al-Alimi joined the Nasserist Organization Party in Yemen in the early stages of his youth.
Al-Alimi obtained his bachelor’s degree in military sciences from the College of Police and Military Sciences in Kuwait in 1975. He returned to his country and worked at the Police College. He continued his education at the College of Arts at Sana’a University and obtained his university degree in 1977.
Then he obtained his MA and PhD degrees in Sociology from Ain Shams University in Egypt in 1988.
In 2011, Al-Alimi was injured in the explosion of the Al-Nahdain Mosque in the presidential house, which targeted the late Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and other leaders in the country while they were performing Friday prayers, but he recovered from his injury following undergoing treatment in Saudi Arabia and Germany.
picture released, Getty Images
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President of the Yemeni Presidency Council Rashad Al-Alimi meet in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. 7 April 2022
The positions he held
It was his first job following graduating from the Police College in Sana’a in 1975, and he continued for two years.
1978-1981: He worked in the Criminal Investigation Department, then a professor at Sana’a University until 1989.
He became Director of Legal Affairs at the Ministry of Interior in 1989, and continued in that position for five years.
He served as head of the Immigration and Passports Authority in 1994, and then as Director of Security for Taiz Governorate in 1996.
He held the position of Minister of Interior in 2001. He served as Chairman of the Supreme Security Committee and Deputy Prime Minister in 2006.
In May 2008, he became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior for Defense and Security Affairs. In the same year, he assumed the position of Minister of Local Administration.
He is a member of the General Committee of the General People’s Congress, and a member of the Yemeni National Dialogue Conference.
He served as advisor to the President of the Republic in 2014.
Reporters for Investigative Journalism had said that Abdul Hafez Al-Alimi, son of Rashad Al-Alimi, who held important positions in the oil sector in Yemen, has owned an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands since 2008.
