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Two Americans detained in UAE to go on trial after 505 days without charges
Source: The Guardian
Two Americans detained in UAE to go on trial after 505 days without charges
Father and son Kamal and Mohamed Eldarat, who family says were ‘kidnapped’
from home, claim to have survived beatings and mock executions
Alan Yuhas
Wednesday 24 February 2016 16.57 GMT
Two Americans who claim to have survived mock executions, electric shocks and beatings in a prison likened to a “haunted house” in the United Arab Emirates will go on trial next week on terrorism charges, despite the pleas of family members, the UN and human rights groups’ call to dismiss the case.
Dual US-Libyan citizens Kamal and Mohamed Eldarat, father and son, will appear in court on 29 February, after 505 days without charges and months of silence from their family, who feared repercussions for going public. But spurred by a UN report supporting the claims of torture, another North American family’s campaign and growing frustration with the UAE, Kamal’s eldest daughter broke her silence this week.
“My dad was literally kidnapped from home,” Amal Eldarat, 27, told the Guardian. Her father was an unlikely abductee: a real estate developer who raised his family in California and London, and worked in Dubai since 1998 without incident. But the night of 26 August 2014, a day after reports that the UAE and Egypt had intervened in Libya’s civil war with airstrikes, several black cars rolled up to the Eldarat’s home.
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Father and son Kamal and Mohamed Eldarat, who family says were ‘kidnapped’
from home, claim to have survived beatings and mock executions
Alan Yuhas
Wednesday 24 February 2016 16.57 GMT
Two Americans who claim to have survived mock executions, electric shocks and beatings in a prison likened to a “haunted house” in the United Arab Emirates will go on trial next week on terrorism charges, despite the pleas of family members, the UN and human rights groups’ call to dismiss the case.
Dual US-Libyan citizens Kamal and Mohamed Eldarat, father and son, will appear in court on 29 February, after 505 days without charges and months of silence from their family, who feared repercussions for going public. But spurred by a UN report supporting the claims of torture, another North American family’s campaign and growing frustration with the UAE, Kamal’s eldest daughter broke her silence this week.
“My dad was literally kidnapped from home,” Amal Eldarat, 27, told the Guardian. Her father was an unlikely abductee: a real estate developer who raised his family in California and London, and worked in Dubai since 1998 without incident. But the night of 26 August 2014, a day after reports that the UAE and Egypt had intervened in Libya’s civil war with airstrikes, several black cars rolled up to the Eldarat’s home.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/24/americans-detained-uae-terrorism-trial-eldarat
