The Foreign Office is calling for an investigation into the arrest and detention of a British man caught wearing a Qatar football shirt in the United Arab Emirates this year.
Ali Issa Ahmad, 26, a security guard from Wolverhampton, has spoken publicly of being stabbed in prison and deprived of sleep, food and water for several days while being held in a security building.
Ahmad and his lawyer, Rodney Dixon QC, attended a meeting with Foreign Office officials on Tuesday and called on them to press the UAE for an investigation. Dixon said FCO officials agreed to do this.
It is not the only case involving a British citizen detained in the UAE in which the FCO is facing pressure to take action. At the weekend Matthew Hedges, an academic, and his wife, Daniela Tejada, said they had lodged a legal complaint over the handling of Hedges’ case.
Hedges was detained in the UAE for more than six months last year on spying charges, jailed for life in November and then granted a royal pardon shortly afterwards. On Tuesday, the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, promised a review into how his department has handled the case.
Ahmad travelled in January to the UAE for a holiday andobtained a ticket for an Asian Cup match between Qatar and Iraq. He wore a Qatar shirt to the match, not knowing that doing so was an offence in the UAE punishable with a large fine and a jail sentence.
After his arrest and detention, he received a series of knife wounds to his arm, injuries to his chest and a stab wound to his side. He said a security official punched him in the face and knocked out a tooth, and he was deprived of sleep, food and water for several days before being transferred to a police cell in Sharjah where he was held until 12 February.
Ahmad, who is fluent in spoken and written Arabic, said he was not permitted to read documents that he was forced to sign. He said he received assistance from British embassy officials during his detention.
He welcomed the FCO’s undertaking to push UAE to investigate his case. “I don’t know how I can get justice for what happened to me but if I can I will do it,” he said. “I’m still very traumatised by what happened to me in UAE. I’m receiving counselling and am struggling to sleep.”
Dixon said the meeting with FCO had been constructive. “We welcome the FCO’s undertaking to ask UAE to investigate the very serious incident which Ali Issa Ahmad suffered in the UAE while attending an international football tournament.”
An FCO spokesperson said: “Our consular staff provided ongoing support to a British man who was detained and subsequently released in the UAE. They visited him in detention to check his welfare and spoke to him on the phone on multiple occasions. We maintained regular contact with the UAE police and courts authorities to seek updates on his case, and have met him and his lawyer following his return to the UK.”
UAE officials previously said of Ahmad: “He was categorically not arrested for wearing a Qatar football shirt. This is instead an instance of a person seeking media attention and wasting police time.”
