Gruesome UAE torture tapes

Video footage of the UAE prince shows him torturing 25 more victims

Sophia Furber London

A tape of a wealthy UAE prince torturing an Afghan immigrant has been leaked to the US by a former business partner. The tape shows Sheikh Issa Bin Zayed al Nayhan whipping Afghan businessman, Mohammed Shah Poor, repeatedly on the face and body, beating him with a plank with nails protruding from it and, finally, running him over with a jeep. The sound of bones breaking is clearly audible in the tape. Poor had allegedly cheated the prince in a grain deal.

Bassam Nablusi, a Lebanese-American businessman who had worked for Sheikh Issa for several years, smuggled the tape to the US, where it was aired on ABC News in mid-April. Nablusi claims that he was imprisoned and tortured in the UAE after he confronted the prince about the abuses, and later, escaped to the US with the help of the American Embassy.

Nablusi's lawyers now claim that they have video footage of Sheikh Issa torturing 25 more victims. Some of these are said to be Sudanese migrant workers and the tapes show members of the UAE security forces aiding in torture. "I have access to at least three witnesses, all of whom will testify that the brutality exhibited in the videos by Sheikh Issa is part of a pattern of conduct... that was well known to various government officials within Abu Dhabi," said Anthony Buzbee, Nablusi's lawyer.

The authorities in the Emirates failed to take any action to against Sheikh Issa, who is a brother of the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. The government claimed that the dispute between Sheikh Issa and Poor had been 'settled privately' and that the prince's actions did not form part of a 'pattern' of abusive behaviour.

For more information on human rights abuses against immigrant workers in the Gulf, please visit www.migrant-rights.org