A court in Abu Dhabi ruled on Sunday that 45 minutes of video showing a member of the emirate’s ruling family torturing an Afghan grain merchant — by stuffing his face with sand, firing a machine gun close to his body, hitting him with a whip and an electric cattle prod, cutting his bare buttocks by striking him a nail embedded in a stick and driving over him — did not prove the prosecution’s case that the sheik was guilty of a crime.
As the Abu Dhabi daily The National reported, the court ruled that Sheik Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a brother of president of the United Arab Emirates, had “diminished liability” for his actions, which he claimed took place while he was under the influence of medication. The trial was held in Al Ain, an oasis city near Sheik Issa’s farm where the Afghan man, Mohammed Shah Poor, was tortured in 2004.
Read more at the New York Times
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