Former Obama counter-terror official charged with child sex offenses in UK

by WorldTribune Staff, April 22, 2024

A senior policy adviser on counter-terrorism in the Obama White House has been charged with child sex offenses in Great Britain.

Rahamim “Rami” Shy, 46, who coordinated the Obama team’s strategy to combat terrorists from Al Qaida and the Taliban, is accused of arranging the commission of a child sex offense, possession of indecent images of children, and possessing a prohibited image of a child, DailyMail.com reported on April 21, citing court documents.

Shy, a U.S. citizen who lives in New Jersey, was arrested in late February by Bedfordshire Police.

He appeared at Luton Crown Court via video-link from HMP Bedford on Friday wearing a grey prison-issue tracksuit. He was not asked to enter a plea to any of the charges and was remanded in custody ahead of a hearing in June. He is due to go on trial in August.

Shy’s LinkedIn and social media accounts appear to have been scrubbed.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Shy was living in the UK at the time of his arrest.

Shy worked in a senior role at the U.S. Treasury Department from 2008 to 2014, advising officials on countering the financing of terrorism and assisting foreign governments to impose sanctions on hostile regimes.

He was deployed to Afghanistan to provide expertise to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which was set up to maintain stability following the America-led invasion of the country.

According to his LinkedIn page, Shy provided ISAF with counter-terrorist finance expertise and went on to present the U.S.’s strategy on Afghanistan to a congressional hearing in 2010.

Shy was a student at Rutgers University in New Jersey and went on to study international security policy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in New York.

Shy was most recently employed as an executive at banking group Citi. A spokesman for Citi said Shy was no longer employed there.


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