High-profile case involving Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan caused intense embarrassment to US-backed Gulf state
Ian Black, Middle East editor
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 10 January 2010
"The half-brother of the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, has been acquitted on charges of torturing and raping an Afghan trader in a high-profile case sparked by harrowing video images of the alleged abuse.
The case caused intense embarrassment to the US-backed Gulf state, one of the world's biggest oil exporters, and cast unwelcome light on its political system and human rights practices....
The story emerged last year when America's ABC news screened a harrowing videotape showing Issa beating a merchant, Muhammad Shah Poor. Issa, assisted by a uniformed man, appeared to abuse Shah Poor with a cattle prod, force sand into his mouth, beat him with a wooden plank with a nail and pour salt in his wounds. A Mercedes SUV then repeatedly ran over the Afghan.....
The tape surfaced during a US lawsuit by Issa's former associate, the Lebanese businessman Bassam Nabulsi, who is suing the sheikh in Texas for millions of dollars he claims he is owed....
Issa claimed Nabulsi and his brother Ghassan orchestrated the incident and filmed it to blackmail him. The two Lebanese were sentenced in absentia to five years each in prison. A Nepalese security guard shown in the video was also acquitted, but a Syrian was given one year in jail for beating Shah Poor. An Indian and a Palestinian were given three years for sodomising him with a stick. [How about that for a "justice" system?]
The Issa case was a grave blow to the international image of the UAE, which has been keen to develop relations with wealthy western politicians, universities and corporations and promote an aura of moderation and tolerance. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said she was shocked by the video......"
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