Bill Browder, the well-known author of Red Notice, energetic opponent of Russian corruption, and progenitor of the Magnitsky Act, was briefly arrested in Spain yesterday morning. The circumstances of his arrest are “murky,” but here’s what I believe happened.

Russian authorities have repeatedly sought to persuade Interpol to issue a Red Notice on Mr. Browder. Interpol has repeatedly declined, correcting declaring that Russia’s requests were “of a predominantly political nature.” This means that they violate Interpol’s constitution.

On October 17, 2017, Russia tried a different tack. It used Interpol to transmit a “diffusion” on Mr. Browder.

Unlike Red Notices, which are at least in theory reviewed by Interpol before publication, diffusions are not subject to any review prior to distribution. For all intents and purposes, a diffusion is simply an email asking some or all Interpol member nations to arrest an individual. Nine days later, Interpol deleted the Russian diffusion for being – like the Russia Red Notice requests – a violation of its constitution.

So why was Mr. Browder arrested? It’s possible, as he has tweeted, that Russia has “slipped these notices through Interpol controls without them noticing,” and that his arrest in Spain resulted from “a SIXTH Russian arrest warrant using Interpol channels . . . NOT an expired warrant, but a live one.” But I find it hard to believe that Interpol would be dumb enough to publish a Red Notice on Mr. Browder after all the controversy in his case and after turning down many previous requests.

But it is not at all hard to believe that there was still a live arrest warrant in Spain for Mr. Browder, stemming either from the October diffusion or from a new Russian diffusion. In either case, the Spanish police did not realize that Interpol had cancelled the diffusion until they checked with Interpol.

Thus, Interpol’s statement that “There is not, and never has been, a Red Notice for Mr. Bill Browder. Mr. Browder is not wanted via INTERPOL channels” could well be correct. There was no Red Notice – but there was a diffusion. And Mr. Browder is not currently wanted through Interpol channels, because that diffusion (whenever Russia transmitted it) has now been cancelled.

I don’t place much value on the Spanish police assertion, as reported by Mr. Browder, that this was “a new Interpol Red Notice.” Most American police wouldn’t know the difference between a Red Notice and a diffusion, and I doubt the Spanish police are any better informed. To most people, including journalists, everything Interpol does is a Red Notice.

The Spanish police are now trying to blame Interpol for failing to delete the Russian request in a timely way – but if Spain confirmed that the request was invalid by checking with Interpol, it would seem that it was Spain, not Interpol, that didn’t update its system. A Spanish police spokesperson has asserted that “An arrest warrant has a date limit and when that expires, it must be deleted from the computer programme and in this case Interpol hadn’t deleted it.”

This is nonsense. Interpol has no power to delete a Spanish arrest warrant: Mr. Browder tweeted an image of the warrant. As I pointed out in my 2013 report on Interpol, Red Notices and diffusions don’t expire for five years, and even then the requesting nation can keep them open. The Russian diffusion of October was almost certainly deleted from Interpol’s systems, and in any case it was nowhere near its expiry date. Given that most of the Spanish comments on the case don’t make any sense, the evidence is strong that it was the Spanish who messed up.

In short, the Spanish system may well have kept its arrest warrant resulting from the Russian diffusion on file after Interpol deleted the diffusion. We know that diffusions (and Red Notices) can linger in national databases long after they are revoked by Interpol. This case seems to offer further proof of this flaw.

Of course, other explanations are possible – and if the explanation is that Interpol did publish a new Red Notice on Mr. Browder and is now lying about it, that is very bad. If the explanation is that Russia transmitted a new diffusion on Mr. Browder, that is almost as bad – and as I warnedback in October, there is nothing to stop Russia from doing this. But right now, I’m inclined to blame a Spanish bungle. In any case, this episode prompts a few reflections.

First, there are lots of nations out there (mostly, but not entirely, civil law nations, as opposed to the Anglo-American common law tradition) that treat a request made through Interpol as sufficient grounds for arresting someone. This latest episode in the Browder saga offers more proof, if any were needed, that detaining people solely on the grounds of a diffusion or a Red Notice (let alone a Russian Red Notice) is a very bad idea.

Second, Interpol’s systems, as well as the world’s financial and passport systems, are increasingly automated and interconnected. This obviously brings greater efficiency – but it also makes harassment easier and more effective. Worse, the interconnected system has few safeguards against harassment, and operates on a presumption of guilt. We have seen this already in Mr. Browder’s case: the October diffusion resulted in the U.S. cancellation of his visa waiver. The cancellation was itself cancelled a day later, and was the result of automatic systems – but, like the Spanish arrest, it illustrates how the international criminal justice system is easily perverted across borders.

Third, Mr. Browder is well known. So, too, is Russia’s repeated and egregious abuse of Interpol in its effort to harass him. Interpol itself has agreed that Russia is abusive. Mr. Browder has published a best-selling book about it, testified about it in many democracies, and written about it often and clearly in many widely-read publications. If public prominence could protect anyone in the world from the consequences of Russian abuse of Interpol, that person would be Mr. Browder.

And yet he was arrested anyhow.

The scandal of yesterday’s events is not simply that Mr. Browder was briefly arrested. It is that, if this had happened to anyone other than Mr. Browder, they would – as he has rightly pointed out – been in jail for months, not hours. And, even more, it is that, if this can happen to Mr. Browder, it can happen to anyone who gets in Vladimir Putin’s way, or in the way of any other autocrat willing to take a lesson from the Russians in how to abuse the Interpol system.  With the Palestinian Authority now a member of Interpol – and openly vowing to use Interpol for political purposes – we can expect a lot more cases like Mr. Browder’s in the future.