At least three Britons remain detained in Dubai despite the royal family issuing a pardon to the 18-year-old Marcus Fakana.
The Tottenham-born teenager recently returned to the UK after being sentenced to a year in a Dubai prison for having sex with a 17-year-old.
The campaign group Detained in Dubai, which helped secure the Brits’ release, say he is now “recovering” after months in the notorious Al-Awir Central prison, which another British prisoner recently reported to be “intolerably overcrowded”.
Mr Fakana’s case raised questions about the dangers of tourism in the Gulf state as it has become a favourite for Britons, who make up more than seven per cent of Dubai’s annual visitors, behind only India, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
But his release does little to allay fears that it remains a dangerous place to be arrested.
British tourists have been imprisoned, shackled and tortured in Dubai over the past decade for petty crimes, including using a counterfeit £20 note and touching another man’s hip in a bar, as well as false charges.
Below, The Independent looks at a few of the Brits still held in Dubai and the wider United Arab Emirates (UAE), as well as some previous instances of wrongful detention.
Ryan Cornelius
The 71-year-old father-of-three has spent the last 17 years in Al-Awir on trumped-up charges of fraud.
The UAE says he illegally obtained a £370m loan from the government-affiliated Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) by bribing staff members, but the United Nations says the charge of fraud is unjust, and has called for his immediate release.
Mr Cornelius accuses the DIB, which is chaired by a senior, non-royal government official, of being his “effective jailers”.
In January, The Independent revealed that Mr Cornelius wrote directly to the Foreign Office urging them to protect him against “aggressive” prison officials after they tried to force him to sign a document claiming his human rights were being upheld.
In his letter to the Foreign Office, he added that he had been denied access to fresh air and basic facilities. He is already suffering from the cumulative health effects of tuberculosis, Covid and high blood pressure, which have been partially brought on by poor prison conditions.
Mr Cornelius’ family have urged the Foreign Office to do more to secure his release.
Charles Ridley
Comparatively less is known about Mr Ridley, the business partner of Mr Cornelius. He, too, was sentenced on charges of fraud following his arrest in 2008.
In a submission to the High Court in 2022, his lawyers said he was “close to destitute” and facing “harsh and intolerable” conditions in Al-Awir.
He accused the DIB of breaching a settlement to pay back the loan after they ensured the extension of his sentence in 2018 by 20 years.
Albert Douglas
British grandfather Albert Douglas has been detained in Dubai since February 2021 on charges concerning two bounced cheques, which forensic tests suggest he did not write.
The cheques relate to a business owned by his son, Wolfgang Douglas, which failed in 2019.
Mr Douglas is yet to be convicted of any crime. His son claims his father is being held in prison on trumped-up charges. There is no release date and he has not officially been sentenced.
He claims that Albert is being tortured behind bars, and was strangled in 2023 with a phone cord by another inmate at Al Barsha prison.
In October 2024, it was reported that UAE authorities had added an additional five years to Mr Douglas’ time in custody.
Wolfgang has spent £1.4 million trying to get his father freed. He told Detained in Dubai: “My father loved Dubai, that is, until he was falsely arrested, beaten and tortured by prison guards and convicted of writing a cheque he never wrote.”
Matthew Hedges
The former PhD student was arrested in May 2018 after visiting the UAE for a research trip into aspects of the country’s foreign and domestic security strategy.
Mr Hedges was then accused of working for MI6 and “spying for or on behalf of” the UK government, a charge then head of the secret service Sir Alex Younger, personally denied.
For nearly eight months after, the academic says he was interrogated for up to 15 hours a day, force fed a cocktail of medication, kept in a windowless room without a bed and denied regular access to the British embassy and his lawyers. He suffered panic attacks and was placed under intense psychological pressure, before being sentenced to life imprisonment.
It was only after intense, although belated lobbying from the UK government, international outcry and a forced confession that Mr Hedges was pardoned and released on 26 November 2018, the country’s National Day. The UAE called it “gracious clemency”.
Mr Hedges said his ordeal left him with post traumatic stress disorder and insomnia. He still has to take drugs seven years later as a result of being force fed medication.
Billy Barclay
Edinburgh-native Billy Barclay spent three days in a Dubai jail in 2018 while his mother was dying in hospital after he was caught using a £20 counterfeit note at a currency exchange.
Jamie Harron
Scot Jamie Harron spent three months in prison in 2017 after being accused of public indecency for touching another man’s hip at a bar.
The 27-year-old electrician claimed he had simply been trying to avoid spilling his drink when he touched the man.
