British media have reported that a former senior political advisor from the Obama administration appeared in court in Britain facing charges of sexual offenses involving children. He is expected to stand trial in August, having been arrested since February. Court documents revealed that Rahim "Rami" Shi, 46, who coordinated U.S. government strategies against terrorists from al-Qaeda and the Taliban, is accused of arranging to commit a sexual offense against children, as well as possessing two indecent images of children and possessing one prohibited image of a child, according to the Daily Mail.
Shi, an American citizen living in New Jersey, worked at the White House during the presidency of Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He was arrested by Bedfordshire police in late February. Charges were filed the following day, and he appeared before Luton Crown Court last Friday wearing a gray prison tracksuit. He was not required to enter a plea to any of the charges and remains in custody pending a hearing in June.
Shi had recently served as an executive at Citi Group and held a senior position at the U.S. Department of the Treasury from 2008 to 2014, where he advised officials on countering terrorist financing and assisted foreign governments in enforcing sanctions against hostile regimes. In addition to his role as a senior advisor to American diplomat Richard Holbrooke, who served under the last three Democratic presidents, Shi provided strategic policy analysis to the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the U.S. Department of Defense and was deployed to Afghanistan to lend expertise to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which was established to maintain stability following the U.S.-led invasion of the country.
