HRW slams acquittal of UAE leader’s brother

UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan (C) Sheikh Sultan bin Zayed al-Nahayan (L) Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayyan (R)

Human Rights Watch slammed yesterday a United Arab Emirates court decision to acquit the brother of the UAE president of torture and said the Gulf state’s reputation had been “sullied.”
A report by the New York-based watchdog also criticised the Emirati court that cleared Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahayan of charges of torturing an Afghan trader in 2004, for failing to provide written reasons for its decision “even though it found all his accomplices guilty.”
“If the UAE government really wants to stop torture and to restore its sullied reputation, it has much to do, especially in light of Sheikh Issa’s acquittal,” said Joe Stork, deputy director of HRW Middle East division.
“The government needs to set in motion significant institutional reforms and to make certain that human rights violations are punished,” he said in a statement released at a Dubai news conference during which HRW released its annual report on rights developments in the UAE, Iran, Iraq and Bahrain.
Sheikh Issa is the brother of the UAE president and ruler of oil-rich Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan. He was acquitted by an Emirati court on January 10 of any wrongdoing, on the basis that he was drugged and therefore not responsible for his actions.
Allegations against the sheikh emerged after a video aired in April 2009 appeared to show him beating a man with whips, electric cattle prods and a wooden plank with protruding nails. Assisted by policemen, Sheikh Issa is seen to pour salt in the man’s wounds and run over him with a sports utility vehicle.
The victim needed months of hospital care following the incident. He was reportedly an Afghan trader who lost a consignment of grain worth 5,000 dollars.
HRW called on the UAE to “ratify the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.”