UK Foreign Office urged to provide apology to national over failure to recognise UAE torture

A parliamentary watchdog has called on the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office to formally apologise to a British national who was detained and tortured by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), stating that the government department failed to act immediately and to notice signs of torture.

Matthew Hedges, an academic from the UK, was detained in the UAE between May and November 2018, after Emirati authorities accused him of conducting espionage and working for the British intelligence agency, MI6, while he travelled to the country to carry out research for his PhD.

Hedges was then sentenced to life imprisonment before being given a presidential pardon only days later, securing his release and return to the UK. He later revealed to the press how he was questioned for up to 15 hours a day under detention, forced to wear ankle cuffs, had sleepless nights, acquired post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and was reliant on numerous drugs that were fed to him.

Since then, the academic complained to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) – an independent service which examines unresolved complaints against British government departments – on the grounds that the Foreign Office had failed to notice he was being mistreated.

This week, the PHSO finally concluded that the British government and its Foreign Office failed to follow its own guidance on detecting potential torture and mistreatment of UK nationals abroad, with the watchdog’s statement reporting that “when a representative from the British Embassy was allowed to visit him, he [Hedges] was supervised by guards who told him what to say.”

We found the Foreign Office failed to notice that UK academic Matthew Hedges might have been tortured when its staff visited him while in detention in Abu Dhabi.

Read more: https://t.co/wNK8oR1Wrn pic.twitter.com/jGhIt77sQD

— Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (@PHSOmbudsman) August 3, 2023

The embassy staff also reportedly noted that Hedges’s voice was shaking during the visit, that he avoided eye contact and that he mentioned having anxiety attacks. Those were all signs, the PHSO stressed, that the British national was likely subject to torture or mistreatment, which the embassy staff failed to address.

“FCDO guidelines state that staff should act on these warning signs even when they do not have consent.  Given that Mr Hedges was supervised at all times by those he alleges were mistreating him, it must have been clear to FCDO staff that he was not in a position to give or withhold consent,” the PHSO stated.

The watchdog called on the Foreign Office to make a written apology to Hedges, as well as to provide a compensation payment of £1,500, all within a month of the final report.

Upon the news of the investigation’s conclusion in his favour, the academic welcomed it as a “personal victory” in recognising the “pain and abuse” that he experienced. “This is the first step in enabling me to truly heal”, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme

“I wouldn’t turn down financial compensation but, of course, £1,500 is a paltry sum by comparison,” he said. “But, first and foremost, the most crucial thing for my recovery is a formal apology from the Foreign Office and for them to acknowledge and to implement changes so that other people who are currently, or have been, in similar circumstances don’t have to endure this.”

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