LONDON: Three British men who claim they were tortured and wrongly convicted on drugs charges in the UAE said on Monday their treatment had been “disgusting” and “out of this world.”
The trio was pardoned and freed from prison last month after British Prime Minister David Cameron raised their case with the UAE president.
Grant Cameron, 25, Karl Williams, 26, and Suneet Jeerh, 25, all from London, claimed they were subjected to beatings by the Dubai authorities.
The tourists were arrested in July last year and convicted in April of possessing for consumption more than one kg of synthetic cannabis known as Spice. They were jailed for four years each.
Jeerh claimed the men were taken into the desert to be tortured. “It was just out of this world, disgusting the way they treated us,” he told ITV television. “They just kept on beating us, asking us names, telling us we were someone else that we were not and when they pulled the tasers out, that’s it, my lights went out from there. “It was like a long cattle prod with a little taser bit at the end.”
Grant Cameron said the group knew there was a bag in their car, but claimed they had no idea it contained synthetic cannabis. “We hired a rental car from a gentleman that we had met over there and we discovered a bag in the car and on inspecting it, it just seemed it was some form of packet. It said on it: ‘Not for human consumption’,” he said. “It didn’t seem anything untoward in any way so we thought nothing of it.”
He said that after their arrest they were beaten “repeatedly” for five or 10 minutes before being taken to their hotel room and beaten for another 20 minutes. The UAE has dismissed the claims of mistreatment.
Brits claim treatment in UAE was ‘disgusting’
