DXBtoDOH

Whut?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-46288510

Note: it's BBC, not Daily Mail.

There must be more to the story.

IKnowNothing

That link is saying he was caught spying for the UK government, but the translated text of the verdict (The National), just states third parties.

So the BBC is saying he was a spy working for the UK? Hmmmm I'm not buying that one. I do know he'd published documents/thesis that were critical towards the UAE and supportive of the muslim brotherhood - a bit weird to come here at all I'd suggest.

DXBtoDOH

I'm not the only one noticing the discrepancy between a life imprisonment and an order to be deported afterwards....

What are the odds he serves a token few months and is quickly deported? That this is mainly a warning to other interested parties not to stick their noses where it doesn't belong?

scot47

Of course we all know this cannot be true. Spying is the preserve of dastardly Russians and Orientals. Clearly Putin has a hand in all of this.

DXBtoDOH

Your wisdom never ceases to amaze me.

psychopomp1

Well to be given a life sentence suggests he was caught with his pants down, ie there was clear evidence he was involved in nefarious activities on behalf of the British state. I wonder if MI6 will compensate his family? They've probably told his family to do one

To any future MI6 agents reading this, I suggest you stay out of the GCC countries. Their security services are a LOT better than you might think....

IKnowNothing

My guess is pardoned for either Martyr's/anniversary day holiday or next Eid. I'd guess before Christmas.

Especially with the BBC airing this on Dec 6th.

scrubbedexpat141

Apparently 'life' means 25yrs.

All very strange, the BBC article reads that they were expecting a very different verdict / sentence.

IKnowNothing - if I produced and/or published written words (let's not call it information or evidence or opinion because I just don't know what it may have been) that was very critical of a place I would be very, very hesitant about going to that place. Even if it means your credibility is questioned, it's got a perfect excuse built in that it's so bad you can't go there safely.....mental if what you say is true / correct.

IKnowNothing

You also have to think, if it's all untrue and he really was just doing work on a thesis for his doctorate, why would the Foreign Secretary threaten repercussions? They've never done that before - think of the guys arrested for spying when they were taking pictures, and a whole lot more.

I have a feeling that, because the UK is making such a thing of it, then there's something in it.

Arnold S

In this age of advanced hacking and satellites being able to read your phone screen, I doubt James Bond walks about asking random strangers and jots down his findings in a note book. My guess is he misjudged the situation completely and got pinched for diplomatic leverage later on.

psychopomp1

Let’s put the boot on the other foot and believe all the media BS about him being just a student researching uae security. What would happen if an Emirati PhD student went sniffing around security sensitive sites in Blighty such as army barracks, MI5 headquarters etc and was caught red handed and admitted to it? Would our police/security services simply say “don’t do it again mate” and deport him? Far from it, he would be tried under the Terrorist/Secrets/whatever Act and given a lengthy jail sentence. No sane person on this earth would simply go to another country and research their secret security protocols. Like I said earlier, he was on MI6’s payroll and got caught with his pants down. I guess MI6 underestimated the uae’s capability of catching foreign spies lol

DXBtoDOH

Eh. If he was really working for MI6 there'd be much more discreet and delicate discussions between the UAE and UK with nothing published in the papers. Hunt wouldn't go full frontal.

Methinks he was just a dim chap who asked the wrong questions of the wrong people in his research.

BritInParis

MI6 doesn’t hire random PhD students to go spy for them. He’s political leverage for something else.

psychopomp1

I would say those are exactly the type of people our security services would hire: intelligent*, behind a respectable profession and above all, which no-one would ever suspect of being a spy. Remember, the likes of M16 work behind extreme secrecy and there's not a cat in hell's chance, MI6 (or our Gov't) would ever come out and say "yes, he was working as a spy, now pls free him" as that would go against the grain in one of their main aims: keeping their operations secret (even failed operations).

The UAE - for all its draconian laws - doesn't just jail people for life willy nilly despite what you may have read in the Daily Mail. He appears to have been caught red handed with all the evidence on him when stopped at the airport. He definitely wasn't caught with just a few photos of sensitive sites, that is 100% certain.

Gulf News is usually fairly accurate in its reporting and I've no reason to doubt they're telling porkies in this case:
https://gulfnews.com/uae/briton-31-g....1542799607314

*obviously this chap wasn't intelligent enough to NOT get caught in his nefarious activities. Perhaps University standards are slipping these days? lol

DXBtoDOH

Gulf News isn't telling us much. Nor is any alleged confession much. We all know they sign the confession in Arabic without knowing what it's actually saying.

I don't think it's anything more than some Muslim Brotherhood sympathising man asking the wrong questions of the wrong people. There are highly sensitive parties and figures in the UAE that the government keeps a very close watch on and this is their way of sending out warning signals to others.