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Legal action charity Reprieve has demanded urgent answers after British cops admitted yesterday to spending weeks training United Arab Emirates (UAE) police officers — notorious torturers and human rights abusers.
The Metropolitan Police revealed it recently hosted a delegation of the Security Support Department of the Abu Dhabi Police, who took part in “daily patrol field tasks and various training activities.”
In a statement, the Met lauded the officers as “on par with the best international experts in this field.”
Reprieve has demanded urgent answers from the Home Office over the exchange.
Police in UAE routinely use torture — including electrocution, beatings, solitary confinement and threats of rape — to extract “confessions.”
It demanded to know what human rights considerations were made by the British government before the exercise was agreed.
The joint training is understood to have included the use of “advanced equipment and devices to handle moderate and high-risk security incidents.”
The exercise also included “drills and methods for tactical firearm use and marksmanship, alongside implementing various security scenarios.”
Reprieve death penalty team director Maya Foa told the Star: “The Abu Dhabi police’s victims include Indian citizen Ezhur Gangadharan, whose bogus statements under torture led to a death sentence, while Brits such as Ahmad Zeidan, who remains unjustly locked up, have also been brutally tortured in the UAE.
“It’s alarming, therefore, to see British officers training alongside UAE police in vaguely drawn ‘security scenarios’ — apparently including ‘the use of weapons to apprehend suspects’.”
Reprieve has in the past represented a number of people challenging alleged UAE police brutality, including several Britons who say they were tortured into giving false confessions.
Met chief of operations Dave Moss expressed his admiration for the Abu Dhabi Police delegation’s “professionalism and sophistication in carrying out difficult and dangerous tasks.”
He also praised their “expertise, physical fitness, and their intellect; placing them among the most effective security members worldwide.”
