And this week from Wiki Leaks.... a world of embarassment!!! Beginning with UAE

The Belgium government previously reported that it charged eight family members of the royal family of Abu Dhabi (UAE) with human trafficking in 2008 for subjecting 17 girls to forced servitude while staying at a Brussels hotel. The government reportedly has not yet scheduled trial proceedings for this case, though they were to have occurred in early 2010. The implicated sheikh and seven other family members have not returned to Belgium.

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Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan has been acquitted of torture and rape charges. This acquittal occurred despite a video that clearly shows the sheikh and others torturing the victim with cattle prods, a board with nails, rubbing salt into wounds, and driving over the victim repeatedly at the end with a Mercedes SUV.


The video was created on the sheikh’s orders so that he would watch how he treated his victim, an Afghani grain dealer, who the sheikh believed had cheated him out of about $5,000 worth of merchandise. Despite extensive injuries, the victim survived.

At first, the government attempted to cover up the crime. With the skeikh’s one brother being the crown prince and another, the chief of police, this likely would have occurred, except for the international uproar over the 2004 video that had been broadcast last year by major news agencies. It should be noted that the sheikh’s torture of the victim, as shown on the video, included the assistance of uniformed police officers.

Although the Al Ain Criminal Court acknowledged the sheikh was the perpetrator, it acquitted him of the charges.

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(SBU) Summary: Local Arabic daily, Al Emarat Al Youm, was


ordered on July 2 to suspend publication for 20 days and its Chief

Executive Officer and Editor-in-Chief each fined 20,000 Dirhams

(Approx. 5500 USD), following the 2006 publication of an article

accusing Abu Dhabi ruling family members of race horse doping. Court

proceedings began in January 2007 and only were completed in July,

¶2009. Post documented the case in the Freedom of Speech sections of

both the 2007 and 2008 Human Rights Reports. The ruling comes down

in the context of an already tense media atmosphere created by the

newly passed media law and the creation of a new court in Abu Dhabi

that will deal exclusively with media cases. End summary.