11 Jan 2010

UAE sheikh acquitted of torture

Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, the brother of UAE president and Abu Dhabi emir Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, has been acquitted of charges of torture, his lawyer has said.

An Emirati court on Sunday acquitted Shiekh Issa despite a video tape of the 2004 incident showing him torturing an Afghan man with whips, electric cattle prods and wooden planks with protruding nails.

"The court acquitted Sheikh Issa after establishing he was not responsible," for the torture, lawyer Habib al-Mulla said on Sunday.

"The court accepted our defence that the Sheikh was under the influence of drugs [medicine] that left him unaware of his actions," al-Mulla said.

Bassam and Ghassan Nabulsi, former business partners of Sheikh Issa, who filmed and kept the video tape, were sentenced in absentia to five years each in prison.

Al Jazeera