Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani
In 2018, Al Jazeera reported apparent new details regarding a 1996 Qatari coup d'état attempt in a documentary accusing the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Egypt, of orchestrating it. According to the documentary, a former French army commander Paul Barril was contracted and supplied with weapons by the UAE to carry out the coup operation in Qatar. UAE minister of foreign affairs Anwar Gargash responded to the documentary and stated that Paul Barril was "in fact a security agent of the Qatari Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani who visited Abu Dhabi and had no relationship with the UAE" and the documentary was "a falsification" attempt to inculpate the UAE in the coup.