CAMPAIGNERS FILE TORTURE COMPLAINTS AGAINSTUAE INTERPOL NOMINEE

Victims of serious Human rights violations seek prosecution against Maj Gen Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi and other leading figures in the Dubai regime

London, 23 November 2021 – The co-founders of the Free Latifa campaign are ratcheting up the pressure on the state of Dubai by filing torture complaints against the nominee to be president of Interpol and other leading figures in the Dubai regime. Detained International on behalf of Tiina Jauhiainen and David Haigh have today instructed the leading French human rights law firm Zimeray & Finelle to pursue criminal charges in France against leading figures in the government of Dubai.

Coverage of the Free Latifa campaign dominated the international news agenda in February, when a BBC Panorama programme showed video recorded by the imprisoned princess Latifa Al Maktoum from the villa in Dubai where she was being held against her will. She has since been allowed to travel abroad for the first time since she was kidnapped by her father’s security forces.

Jauhiainen, a Finnish national now resident in London, was Latifa’s friend who accompanied the princess on her attempted escape from Dubai in February 2018. The mission ended on 4 March 2018 when crack Emirati and Indian commandos stormed the boat the two women were on in international waters off India. Jauhiainen was kidnapped at gunpoint, taken against her will and without any charge to Al Awir jail in Dubai, where she was subjected to inhumane and degrading treatment, forced to sign false confession, and threatened repeatedly with death, she was released two weeks after the kidnapping following an international media campaign by David Haigh of Detained International. Jauhiainen gave witness evidence in the English High Court in 2019 on behalf of Princess Haya of Jordan, the former wife of the Dubai ruler. The judgments in that case found that both Latifa and Tiina had been kidnapped, these judgments form a strong basis for criminal complaints against the Dubai regime

Haigh shepherded the takeover of Leeds United FC by a Dubai based Islamic bank in 2012. When his employer then sold the club, Haigh resigned as Leeds’s managing director, yet when he travelled to Dubai to discuss a severance deal, he was thrown in prison without charge and held in arbitrary detention for 22 months. He suffered torture, abuse and rape in degrading conditions, for which he is still having treatment. Haigh gave evidence to a Scottish court in 2017[footnoteRef:1], the judge Sherriff T Welsh QC found that “I fully accept he [Haigh] was repeatedly seriously assaulted by Dubai police officers and Tasered while detained at Bur Dubai Police Station” and “I believed the account he [Haigh] gave of squalid, overcrowded and insanitary detention conditions in Bur Dubai Police Station. I further believe he was sexually assaulted and raped in the car park of that Police station during his detention.”  [1: https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/docs/default-source/cos-general-docs/pdf-docs-for-opinions/2017scedin77.pdf?sfvrsn=0]

Haigh’s and Jauhiainen’s decision to instruct Zimeray & Finelle raises the stakes considerably. Zimeray is not just a human rights lawyer, but he is a former MEP and former French Ambassador for Human Rights.

Zimeray & Finelle, who acts for another British businessmen suffering human rights violations by the UAE, Christian Michel is now instructed to file all possible complaints under French law accusing of Dubai police of egregious breaches of Haigh’s and Jauhiainen human rights, including torture and inhuman and degrading treatment in arbitrary detention. It follows the filing of an earlier complaint by Haigh to the Metropolitan Police’s special operations unit dealing with international crimes.

Haigh added, “Al-Raisi and his boss Sheikh Mohammed should be both radioactive to the international community. Barely a week has passed since Sheikh Mohamed was found by the English High Court, for the second time, to have broken countless laws in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, including the kidnapping of his daughter Shamsa off the streets of Cambridge. The idea that Al-Raisi, who reports to and is therefore under the control of Sheikh Mohammed, should be in charge of the world’s police force should be a non-starter, yet there is a real threat that it will happen.

Francois Zimeray said: “I have worked with Tiina and David for some time on their campaign to free Princess Latifa and the cross over with our client Christian Michel. Following developments on the case of Princess Latifa, the timing is now right for Tiina and David to focus on the breaches of their own human rights, the judgments of the English High Court in relation to Tiina and the Scottish court in relation to David, provide strong findings of serious human rights abuses against them and are a substantial basis upon which to consider submitting criminal complaints in France.”

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About Detained International: Detained International is a legal advocacy NGO that provides pro bono support to victims of injustice, inequality and other human rights violations in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, and the wider Middle East. With offices in London and Washington DC, it was founded in 2018 by UAE torture victim David Haigh, a prominent human rights lawyer and justice and equality campaigner. Detained International exists to help people in their hour of need, in many cases when they have been locked up far from home for no legitimate or even apparent reason and lack the support from obvious channels like their national embassy.