Issa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan - Torture Incident

Torture Incident

See also: Human rights in the United Arab Emirates

Issa is the subject of an assault, libel, and slander lawsuit brought on by businessman Bassam Nabulsi of Houston, Texas, a former long-term adviser to the Al Nahyan family, filed on August 16, 2006 in District Court for the The Southern District of Texas Houston Division for Assault, Libel, and Slander.

Nabulsi alleges that he safeguarded the Issa's most important documents, including financial records, investment documents and videotapes, which showed Issa torturing a man with a cattle prod and a spiked plank. Nabulsi, who had smuggled the tape out of the UAE, was also suing Issa, alleging he was tortured by UAE police, after he refused to hand over videos to Issa after a disagreement. Nabulsi claimed his brother recorded the tapes as demanded by Issa, who, Nabulsi claimed, liked to watch them later. The lawsuit was dismissed on June 12, 2009 by district judge Sim Lake for lack of personal jurisdiction and proper service of process.

In April 2009, an abridged version of the tape was posted by ABC News. In the video, taken at some time in 2005, shows Issa beating another man, an Afghan grain merchant called Mohammed Shah Poor, with a wooden plank with protruding nails, firing an automatic weapon into the sand around him and forcing a cattle prod into his anus before turning it on. Prior to the abuse, the video allegedly shows a man in Abu Dhabi police uniform- but without his equipment belt, tying the victim's arms and legs; at a later point, Issa urges the cameraman to move in closer with the words, "Get closer. Get closer. Get closer. Let his suffering show." The victim also appeared to have been run over by a Mercedes SUV, have lighter fluid poured on his genitals and set alight, and had salt poured on his wounds. In the end of the video, two other police officers can be seen posing alongside a fully marked ministry departmental vehicle. It is wondered if the registration numbers on the departmental vehicle and the SUV were ever cross checked to authenticate the involvement of the sheikh and the government.

Lawyers stated the abuse began because Issa felt he had been overcharged in a grain deal. "Ultimately this video, or certainly large portions of it, will be played in court," said Anthony G Buzbee, who represents Nabulsi in his lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed pursuant to the Torture Victims Protection Act, also lists Sheikhs Nasser bin Zayed Al Nahyan (since deceased), and Saif, as well as the Royal Family of bin Zayed Nahyan Partnership as defendants.

In a statement to ABC News, the UAE Ministry of the Interior said, it had reviewed the tape and acknowledged the involvement of Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, brother of the country's crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed; the Minister of the Interior is also a sibling of Issa. The Ministry said, "The incidents depicted in the video tapes were not part of a pattern of behavior," the Interior Ministry's statement declared. The government statement said its review found "all rules, policies and procedures were followed correctly by the Police Department."

Responding to the government statement, Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch stated "If this is their complete reply, then sadly it's a scam and it's a sham. It is the state that is torturing them, if the government does not investigate and prosecute these officers, and those commanding those officers." In response to the video's emergence, US congressman Jim McGovern called for a freeze on government aid to the UAE, and requested that Issa be refused US visas; in a letter to the secretary of state of the United States, Hillary Clinton, he said: "I cannot describe the horror and revulsion I felt when witnessing what is on this video ... I could not watch it without constantly flinching." Nabulsi has also alleged that he brought the existence of the torture tape, along with the involvement and collusion of UAE police, to the attention of a US official assigned to train UAE police, with little effect. McGovern has also called for an investigation into these allegations, in order to discover when US officials knew about the tape, if they took any action and, in the event that they didn't, why not. "It shocks the conscience," he said.

The controversy over the torture tape has delayed recertification of a US–UAE nuclear power cooperation agreement.