What Matthew Hedges’ release from prison says about our relationship with the UAE

Hedges’ life sentence last week appears to have caught Jeremy Hunt completely off-guard. That suggests the British government was either misled by officials in the UAE – or misunderstood what it was told.

The story of Matthew Hedges’ detention in the United Arab Emirates – and his subsequent pardoning today – is a very odd one indeed.

Arrested at Dubai international airport back in May, Hedges was accused of being a British spy. According to his family, he was denied access to a lawyer or consular representation for a full six weeks after first being detained. He then signed a confession, apparently written in Arabic – which he is said not to understand – and last week a UAE court sentenced him to life imprisonment.

Hedges had maintained his innocence throughout his time in jail and had insisted that he was simply carrying out research for his PhD. And now, five days after being convicted, he is set to be released after Emirati authorities confirmed a presidential pardon – even though they maintain that he admitted to carrying out espionage. The UAE’s decision to grant “gracious clemency” came on the back of harsh criticism by the UK government of last week’s decision – and intense lobbying to have it reversed.

So, what to make of it all? First, the case highlights the degree to which the UAE’s legal system lacks transparency and accountability. For the country’s representatives to have argued – as they did last week – that its judicial operations are akin to Britain’s is palpable nonsense. There are regular accounts of detainees being mistreated, while the courts themselves are overseen by judges who are political appointees and who are seemingly content to rely on evidence obtained by force.

Human rights organisations have regularly concluded that trials are unfair. It is notable that UK courts have refused extradition requests by the Emirati authorities since 2010 due to the “real likelihood of human rights violations”.

Writing in The Independent last year, David Haigh described how he travelled to Dubai to resolve a commercial dispute but ended up being arrested. For eight months he was given no information about the criminal charge he was said to be facing; and during his nearly two years in prison he says he was tasered, beaten and raped.

Haigh sought help from the English-language common law judiciary based in the Dubai International Financial Centre, which deals with corporate wrangles and to which a number of UK judges have been appointed. He says he was ignored. If businesses want to have faith in the UAE’s commercial dispute resolution services, they should demand that criminal cases be handled with propriety and openness.

However, the Hedges case raises questions about the actions of the UK government too, and especially the Foreign Office. Jeremy Hunt, who took over as foreign secretary in July, has talked a good game about seeking the release of Britons held abroad without due process – notably Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been in an Iranian prison since April 2016. Yet Hedges’ life sentence last week appears to have caught him completely off-guard. That suggests the British government was either misled by officials in the UAE – or misunderstood what it was told.

While the announcement that Hedges is to be pardoned suggests that diplomatic pressure was belatedly successful, it is unlikely to inspire confidence in a government department which has been heavily hit by financial cuts in the austerity years. Flogging off the UK embassy building in Bangkok earlier this year highlighted the FCO’s need for a cash boost. Cuts have also reduced its institutional experience and memory.

More broadly, if the improper detention of British citizens (Hedges, Zaghari-Ratcliffe and others) is the totemic issue of the day, their cases should also act as a reminder that Britain must do more to stand up for the liberal and progressive values for which it is supposedly a beacon in the world. The UAE and Iran (and others for that matter) do not respect human rights, are strangers to press freedom and do not tolerate dissent. Is that something that can simply be brushed aside?

Of course our government should endeavour to have friendly relations with the other nations of the world – not least in this Brexit age when we need all the chums we can muster. But that should not come at the expense of ideals which ought to be held dear and which deserve to be demanded of others.