A British football fan who was detained in United Arab Emirates after being accosted by security officials for wearing a Qatar football shirt, has told the Guardian he was convinced he was going to die.
Ali Issa Ahmad, 26, a security guard from Wolverhampton, said he was stabbed in prison, and deprived of sleep, food and water for several days while being held in a security building. “I thought 100% that I was going to die in the UAE,” he said. “I thought I would commit suicide rather than letting them kill me.”
Ahmad had travelled to the UAE for a holiday in January. While he was there he got a ticket for an Asian Cup match between Qatar and Iraq on 22 January. The Arsenal fan wore a Qatar shirt to the match, not knowing that doing so is an offence in the UAE punishable with a large fine and an extended jail sentence.
Hours after arriving back in Britain on Thursday, he told the Guardian how he had been arrested, beaten, interrogated and detained following an initial stop by security officials for wearing the Qatar shirt.
He had a series of knife wounds to his arm, injuries to his chest and a stab wound to his side, and appeared dazed, exhausted and in a state of shock. He also said that a security official had knocked out a tooth when he punched him in the face.
Ahmad said his troubles had begun when officials accosted him after Qatar’s game against Iraq and demanded to know why he was wearing a Qatar shirt.They demanded he hand over the shirt, which he did. He then drove back from the match in Abu Dhabi to his hotel in Dubai, but the men followed him. They were still at his hotel the next morning.
He said he decided to go to the beach for the day, and still unaware that it was an serious offence in the UAE to do so, he wore a different Qatar football shirt. He was followed again, and on the way back to his hotel the men who had been following him flagged down his car. When he got out, they forced him into the back of his car, handcuffed him, cut the shirt from him inflicting several knife wounds to his arm and chest, punched him in the face and put a plastic bag over his face.
“I felt a flash when the bag was over my head and realised they were filming me,” he said. “I thought they were going to kill me.”
After the incident the security officials let him go. He said he was left bleeding in the car, vomited and felt shocked and dazed. He drove into a petrol station and called an ambulance. Security officials arrived at the scene shortly after the paramedics and interrogated him. He was taken to hospital to have his injuries treated, and then detained in a security building.
He said 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. He said he was stabbed in the side one night, he believes by another prisoner.
He boarded a flight back to the UK on Wednesday evening and arrived on Thursday.
Although Ahmad is fluent in spoken and written Arabic he said he was not permitted to read documents he was forced to sign. He said he had received assistance from British embassy officials during his detention.
“Before I got on the plane back to the UK a UAE official at the airport said to me: ‘We are a very good country.’ I don’t know how I can get justice for what happened to me but if I can I will do it.”
The UAE embassy was approached for comment. UAE officials previously issued a statement saying Ahmad had gone to the police station in Sharjah claiming that he had been harassed and beaten up by UAE football fans for cheering the Qatar team at the Asian Cup.
The statement said: “The police took him to hospital where a doctor who examined him concluded that his injuries were inconsistent with his account of events and appeared to be self-inflicted. On 24 January 2019 Mr Ahmed was charged with wasting police time and making false statements. We are advised that he has since admitted those offences and will now be processed through the UAE courts.
“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.”