text: Image copyright AFP Image caption Boris Becker says the legal action being taken against him is "unjustified and unjust" 
   
   Confusion surrounds a claim by former tennis champion Boris Becker that he holds diplomatic status on behalf of the Central African Republic (CAR). 
   
   He asserted last week in London that his appointment as a diplomat by the CAR gave him protection from legal action in a bankruptcy case. 
   
   The CAR embassy in Belgium confirmed it had issued him a diplomatic passport. 
   
   However, a top official in the CAR foreign ministry told a French news agency the passport was fake. 
   
   Cherubin Moroubama told AFP the serial number on the document matched one of a batch of "new passports that were stolen in 2014". 
   
   He added that the passport, dated 19 March 2018, does not bear the signature or the stamp of the foreign minister. 
   
   CAR foreign minister Charles Armel Doubane later told Reuters an inquiry was being launched into who had issued the passport. 
   
   Lawyers for the 50-year-old three-time Wimbledon champion say he was appointed a sport and culture attache to the EU by the CAR in April. 
   
   In that month he tweeted a picture of himself shaking hands with CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadera in Brussels. 
   
   Mr Becker was declared bankrupt in 2017 over money owed to private bank Arbuthnot Latham and is now being pursued for "further assets". 
   
   In his defence lodged with the High Court in London last week, Mr Becker's lawyers maintained he could not be made subject to any legal process unless President Touadera specifically lifted his immunity at the request of the British government. 
   
   Image copyright CAR embassy Brussels Image caption Mr Becker's photo appeared on the website of the CAR embassy in Brussels 
   
   His legal team said: "This means he cannot be subject to legal process in the courts of any country for so long as he remains a recognised diplomatic agent." 
   
   But on Tuesday, Mr Moroubama was quoted by AFP as saying that "Becker's job profile does not exist" in the CAR's records. 
   
   He added that the document in question describes Becker's diplomatic role as "financial charge de mission... nothing to do with sporting questions". 
   
   Mr Becker's lawyers have not yet responded. 
   
   The tennis star became the first German to win Wimbledon in 1985, at the age of 17. 
   
   He won it again in 1986 and 1989 among the 64 ATP Tour titles he claimed during a 15-year career. 
   
   After his retirement as a player he became a commentator with the BBC. ||||| Boris Becker's diplomatic passport for the Central African Republic 'fake': Foreign Minister 
   
   Updated 
   
   Central African Republic's Foreign Minister says a copy of former tennis champion Boris Becker's diplomatic passport he has seen is a "clumsy fake". 
   
   Becker said he had claimed diplomatic immunity from bankruptcy proceedings in London by taking up a role with Central African Republic (CAR) as a sports envoy. 
   
   But the country's Foreign Minister, Charles Armel Doubane, said the diplomatic passport he had seen was a fake. 
   
   "The signature on the passport was not mine and the number belongs to a series that was stolen during the transitional government [set up in 2014 after the country's civil conflict]," he said. 
   
   "The copy of Boris Becker's passport that I saw and that has been circulating on social media is a clumsy fake." 
   
   He said CAR was launching an inquiry into who issued the phoney diplomatic passport to Becker. 
   
   Becker's lawyer was not immediately available for comment. 
   
   The 50-year-old was declared bankrupt by a British court last year in connection to a debt owed to private bankers Arbuthnot Latham. 
   
   He had recently been pursued for "further assets", according to a statement by his lawyers. 
   
   Becker's argument against 'gravy train for the suits' 
   
   The former tennis champion lodged a claim at the High Court in London to halt the case, and claimed his appointment as a diplomat by the CAR afforded him protection. 
   
   Becker's lawyers argued his post as attache diplomatic immunity under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which meant he "cannot be subject to legal process in the courts of any country for so long as he remains a recognised diplomatic agent". 
   
   Through his lawyers, Becker had said the bank's decision to sue him was "both unjustified and unjust". 
   
   "A bunch of anonymous and unaccountable bankers and bureaucrats pushed me into a completely unnecessary declaration of bankruptcy, which has inflicted a whole heap of damage on me," he said late last week. 
   
   "Once this gravy train for the suits has been stopped in its tracks, my lawyers will turn to the question of compensation." 
   
   In the statement, Becker went on say his attache role for the CAR would allow him to give something meaningful back to sports supporters in one of the poorest parts of the world. 
   
   "There's no reason why a role of this kind should be treated any differently to an appointment as a military or a trade attache, which everyone recognises as attracting diplomatic immunity," he said. 
   
   During his tennis career Becker stacked up six grand slam titles but in recent years his life has been a roller coaster. 
   
   He lost much of his fortune, had a messy divorce and became the butt of jokes for his flings. 
   
   Reuters/ABC 
   
   Topics: tennis, sport, law-crime-and-justice, international-law, laws, germany, central-african-republic, england 
   
   First posted ||||| Country says tennis star, who faces bankruptcy proceedings, is not one of its diplomats 
   
   The Central African Republic has denied that Boris Becker is one of its official diplomats and said a passport the former tennis star claimed should give him diplomatic immunity from bankruptcy proceedings in the UK is invalid. 
   
   “The diplomatic passport that he has is a fake,” the foreign ministry’s chief of staff, Cherubin Moroubama, told Agence-France Presse. He said the document’s serial number corresponded to one of a batch of passports stolen in 2014. 
   
   AFP said the passport, of which it had seen a copy, was dated 19 March 2018 but had not been stamped or signed by the country’s foreign minister, Charles Armel Doubane. 
   
   On Friday lawyers for the three-time Wimbledon champion informed the high court in London that he had been appointed as the CAR’s attaché to the EU on sporting, cultural and humanitarian affairs in April. They argued this gave him diplomatic immunity from bankruptcy proceedings under the Vienna convention. 
   
   According to the German daily Die Welt, Doubane told journalists in Bangui that Becker was “not an official diplomat for the Central African Republic. To be recognised as a diplomat, it would require not just president’s nomination but also my signature as foreign minister.” 
   
   Moroubama said the job Becker claimed to be doing for his nation – which, despite abundant natural resources including gold, diamonds and uranium, ranks bottom of the UN’s human development index – “does not exist”. 
   
   Becker, who became the youngest male grand slam champion when he won Wimbledon as an unseeded player in 1985, was declared bankrupt in June last year over an undisclosed sum owed to the private bankers Arbuthnot Latham & Co. 
   
   After his lawyers submitted the application for immunity, Becker said the decision to commence bankruptcy proceedings against him was “both unjustified and unjust” and he was asserting immunity “to bring this farce to an end so that I can start to rebuild my life”.
target: – Boris Becker's claim of diplomatic immunity in an ongoing bankruptcy case just went from odd to bewildering. Though the former tennis champ claims his April appointment as a Central African Republic attache to the European Union means he's immune from bankruptcy hearings in the UK, the CAR appears to be balking. Becker's claimed post of attache for sports, culture, and humanitarian affairs "does not exist" in CAR records, meaning he's not an official diplomat, says Foreign Ministry chief of staff Cherubin Moroubama. What's more, the diplomatic passport issued to Becker in March, listing his post as "financial charge de mission," is phony, with a serial number matching one of several stolen under a transitional government in 2014, Moroubama says, per the BBC and Guardian. CAR Foreign Minister Charles Armel Doubane calls the passport a "clumsy fake," per ABC Australia. "To be recognized as a diplomat, it would require not just [the] president's nomination but also my signature as foreign minister," he adds, per the Guardian. That leaves plenty of questions for CAR's ambassador to the EU, Daniel Emery Dede, who reportedly signed Becker's passport, and for the CAR embassy in Belgium, which confirmed the issuance of it and featured a photo of Becker on its website, per the BBC. Becker, who met with CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadera in Brussels in April, is maintaining his diplomatic status amid the confusion, reports Deutsche Welle, which has a certificate a lawyer says confirms Becker's position as attache for finance, as well as for sports, culture, and humanitarian affairs.