Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski was paid £15,000 to help organise a conference that was described by activists as an “amateurish” attempt to gather support for a coup in Qatar.



BuzzFeed News has established that the Shrewsbury MP was paid £300 a hour to work on the Qatar, Global Security & Stability conference, which was organised by a Qatari exile who says he fled the country after being detained and tortured. Almost every debate was strongly critical of the current Qatari ruling regime.

Kawczynski declared two £7,500 payments on the parliamentary register of members’ interests for 48 hours work, and there is no suggestion that he broke parliamentary rules.

But the declarations do not mention which conference the fees relate to, the subject matter or the identity of the organiser. They simply attribute the payments as being from an obscure company called Akta Group.

The company, which is registered to a PO box in east London and has yet to file any accounts, is entirely controlled by a 32-year-old Romanian woman called Tatiana Gisca. BuzzFeed News has established that she is married to Khalid al-Hail, the 29-year-old Qatari who hosted the conference.

He styles himself as the founder of the Qatar National Democratic Party, and claims to be a cousin of the current Qatari emir. Political parties are currently banned in the country.

Gisca, who has no clear online presence and no public track record in organising major events, has previously given her occupation as "domestic engineer".

She was previously in a short-lived communications agency she founded with two members of the British Monarchist Society, which also did initial work on the same Qatari conference.

Khalid al-Hail confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the payments to Kawczynski were made through his wife’s company. In an exchange of messages on WhatsApp, he said: “It was all through legitimate ways and ‘the parliamentary interest return’ can prove the declaration from any speaker I’ve secured. Nothing under [the] table as the Qatari government do always.”