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The family of a British academic convicted of espionage in the United Arab Emirates has appealed for clemency, said the country's ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Sulaiman Almazroui said at a press conference in London on Friday that his government was reviewing the call and that he would respond when the time came, but he defended the process under which Matthew Hedges was convicted.
The imprisonment of Hedges, a 31-year-old doctoral student at the University of Durham, sparked a public outcry this week as the Gulf State was accused of denial of justice.
Almazroui said: "Matthew Hedges has not been sentenced to the end of a five-minute lawsuit, as reported by some. During one month, three judges assessed convincing evidence in three hearings.
"They drew their conclusions after a complete and appropriate process. It was an extremely serious case. We live in a dangerous neighborhood and national security must be a top priority.
"Mr. Hedges' family has applied for leniency and the government is considering this request. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt had a good conversation yesterday with our Minister of Foreign Affairs. "
"Like the UK, the UAE is a country with an independent judiciary. The government does not dictate verdicts to the court. "
He underlined the close ties between Britain and the United Arab Emirates, adding: "Because of the strength of this relationship, we hope that an amicable solution can be found."
Tejada confirmed that a call for clemency had been filed with the UAE government, adding, "We will wait to see what happens."
According to tradition, the UAE gives a pardon to the offenders imprisoned on the country's national holiday, which will take place next Thursday.
The leniency application may imply the guilt of the Hedges family, but this could be perceived as a price worthy of payment if there is an implicit agreement between the Foreign Office and the Government of the United Arab Emirates that an application will be followed rehabilitation and consent. Release.
The ambassador's statement followed consultations held Thursday night in the United Arab Emirates with Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, and a conversation called "constructive" on the phone between Thursday and Hunt.
The Foreign Office is increasingly optimistic that the United Arab Emirates, a long-time British ally, wants to avoid a diplomatic confrontation with London or find itself in the same basket as Saudi Arabia, a country that suffers of a bad reputation because of the murder of Washington. The post reporter Jamal Khashoggi by agents of the Saudi state.
Hedges' wife, Daniela Tejada, said she believed the British government was putting its interests above her husband's fight for freedom.
She recounted talking to her husband on Thursday night and that he complained of feeling bad.
Hedges, originally from Exeter, was arrested at the Dubai airport on May 5th. He said he was innocent and was conducting research on the UAE's security strategy in the country as part of his doctoral dissertation, but prosecutors said he had confessed to his accusations.
Tejada told BBC Breakfast that her conversations with her husband had been closely monitored, so that there was a limit to what she could tell him about efforts to secure his release.
"I tried to reassure him and tell him that he had 10 times more support than before," Tejada said.
Hedges has been in a UAE prison for more than six months. He went to the United Arab Emirates to research his thesis and was sentenced in a court in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, at a hearing of less than five minutes, in the absence of his lawyer.
Academics have said that Hedges may have inadvertently put himself at risk by "accurately analyzing" the new security policy of the United Arab Emirates. The country presents itself as a modernist and socially liberal force in the Gulf, but dissent is repressed.
Chris Davidson, former Middle East policy reader and researcher at the University of Durham, who helped oversee Hedges' research, said: [of his research] was actually friendly to UAE – very objective, well bought. This was not intended to cause any difficulties. "
He added, "Everything I read would have absolutely no use for an intelligence agency. There was nothing classified there. Everything was in the public domain [information]. [There was] nothing tells me that he could have worked surreptitiously for an intelligence agency at the same time.
"The UAE seems quite adamant that they have hard evidence. But if [Matthew] has e-mails from gov.uk on his electronic devices that they believe could establish a difficult relationship with the UK government. I know that he organized a briefing with the FCO a few weeks before this field work to inform the new UK ambassador to the UAE. But other academics have attended these meetings over the years. That does not make them a spy and the UAE should know it. "
