UK academic Matthew Hedges seeks damages from UAE officials
Al Jazeera
Academic jailed for spying by UAE in 2018 launches court proceedings against four senior Emirati officials involved in his case.
A British academic who was jailed on espionage charges by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has launched civil proceedings in a UK court against four senior Emirati officials, according to his lawyers. The UAE had arrested Matthew Hedges in May 2018 and handed him a life sentence more than six months later after showing a video of him purportedly confessing to being a member of Britain’s spy agency and researching which military systems the Gulf state was buying. After being granted a presidential pardon and returning to the United Kingdom in late November 2018, Hedges accused UAE investigators of subjecting him to psychological torture and forcing him to give a false confession. UAE officials at the time had denied the allegations and described the doctoral student at Durham University as a “part-time academic, part-time businessman and full-time spy”.More Related News