Plaudits were supposedly heaped upon Doha during the delegation’s meeting with Ali bin Samikh Al-Marri, chairman of Qatar’s National Human Rights Committee.
While the meeting may have taken place, Carmichael was not in the room — or even in the country. A photograph of the meeting published on The Peninsula’s website was taken from so far away that it is impossible to distinguish the MPs who were present.
Carmichael, the Liberal-Democrat chief whip in the House of Commons, is chairman of the British-Qatar Group in Parliament and has visited the country on at least one occasion.
Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs footed the bill for flights, accommodation and food, which came to between £51,000 and £52,500, for a three-day visit in February 2016.
The group has not yet published an account of benefits received in 2017.
Asked how the MP might feel about being misrepresented in what amounts to fake news, his office said the report in The Peninsula was “strange.”
It is not the first time Qatari media outlets have issued false reports about UK politicians visiting the country.
The Qatar News Agency (QNA) in September claimed that the “British Parliamentary Inquiry Committee” had been “charged by the British Parliament to investigate the violations of the siege imposed on the State of Qatar.”
But no committee of that name exists, and the UK Parliament made no order for such a visit.