A Swedish male model and TV personality who was sentenced to 10 years in jail in Dubai for possessing cocaine has arrived home in Sweden after being pardoned by authorities. Farzan Athari, a 31-year-old Swedish-Iranian, was originally sentenced to life in jail after he was arrested outside his home in Dubai’s Burj Khalifa on May 14, 2013 and found in possession of 21 grams of cocaine in 11 plastic pouches. His sentence was reduced to 10 years upon appeal, after he claimed the illegal drug was for personal use and was not for resale purposes. Last year, he launched an online campaign calling for his release and has issued a song entitled ‘Save My Life’. Recorded while in prison in Dubai, the
This afternoon, the Westminster Magistrates Court ruled against the UAE's Application to Extradite Michael Halliday who had been accused in the UAE of breach of trust; which they argued in Court was the equivalent in the UK of Theft and Fraud. Jonathan Black of BSB Solicitors instructed Ben Cooper of Doughty Street Chambers to represent Mr Halliday as defence counsel. The defence submitted that if Halliday were to be extradited to the UAE, he would be at risk of torture and inhumane and degrading treatment by authorities of the UAE, particularly as a homosexual male. While the presiding Judge was satisfed that there was a Prima Facie case (a case to answer), he needed to consider under Artic
Emirates NBD, Dubai's largest bank, is one of a number of local UAE lenders who have hired British and American debt collection agencies to chase expatriate defaulters who have absconded back to their home countries without settling their loan repayments. “In response to a growing number of fleeing debtors, banks such as Emirates NBD, ADCB [Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank] and others have been increasing their recovery efforts by employing international debt collectors and enforcers,” Radha Stirling, a legal consultant specialising in the Middle East and founder of the London-based charity Detained in Dubai, told Arabian Business. Stirling claimed that some of the third party agencies had begun us
