{"id":138965,"date":"2014-09-07T09:41:45","date_gmt":"2014-09-07T09:41:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=138965"},"modified":"2014-09-08T20:44:20","modified_gmt":"2014-09-08T20:44:20","slug":"tortured-british-student-faces-verdict-uae-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/tortured-british-student-faces-verdict-uae-appeal\/","title":{"rendered":"Tortured British student faces verdict in UAE appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A verdict is expected <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_646570776\"><span class=\"aQJ\">tomorrow<\/span><\/span> (<span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_646570777\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Monday 8 Sept<\/span><\/span>) in the appeal by a British student against his conviction in Sharjah, UAE, which was based on a \u2018confession\u2019 extracted from him through torture.<\/p>\n<p>Ahmad Zeidan (21), from Berkshire, was arrested on 13 December 2013 in the Emirate of Sharjah, which borders Dubai. He was beaten by police officers, hooded, stripped and threatened with rape, before being forced to sign documents in Arabic, a language he cannot read. Those documents were subsequently used against him in his prosecution on drugs charges.<\/p>\n<p>In July this year the British Prime Minister told legal charity Reprieve, which is assisting Mr Zeidan, that the Government takes the allegations \u201cextremely seriously,\u201d and that UK officials had \u201cmade clear the importance of expediting the investigation into the allegations of mistreatment and asked the UAE to bring these to a conclusion before the appeal hearing\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>However, with Mr Zeidan\u2019s appeal hearing now concluded and awaiting a verdict, there remains no indication that the UAE has come anywhere close to concluding the investigation into his torture, despite the UK Government\u2019s explicit request.<\/p>\n<p>There are also concerns over the Sharjah prosecution\u2019s attempts to obtain a harsher sentence for Mr Zeidan, who initially faced charges which carry the death penalty but ultimately received a nine year sentence at his first trial.<\/p>\n<p>Commenting, <strong>Maya Foa, Director of Reprieve\u2019s death penalty team<\/strong> said: \u201cShamefully, the UAE doesn\u2019t seem satisfied with having tortured Ahmad into making a phoney confession \u2014 they are now seeking to increase the already unjust sentence handed down to him. The UAE\u2019s leaders seem indifferent to the epidemic of police torture which infects their country, and to the requests from the British Government that they investigate the brutal abuse to which Ahmad was subjected. \u00a0The UK must redouble its efforts to see justice done and Ahmad released.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A verdict is expected tomorrow (Monday 8 Sept) in the appeal by a British student against his conviction in Sharjah, UAE, which was based on a \u2018confession\u2019 extracted from him through torture. Ahmad Zeidan (21), from Berkshire, was arrested on 13 December 2013 in the Emirate of Sharjah, which borders Dubai. He was beaten by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":138966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-138965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news","9":"category-war-terrorism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}