Crown Prince frees 785 prisoners ... but is jailed British ‘spy’ among them?
THE family of an academic jailed as a British spy in Abu Dhabi face an agonising wait to discover if he is among 785 prisoners pardoned yesterday.
The Crown Prince of Dubai offered Matthew Hedges a glimmer of hope by dangling the prospect of clemency after he was sentenced to life in jail.
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed yesterday ordered the release of 785 inmates under a ‘presidential pardon’ – but officials refused to reveal whether Mr Hedges is on the list. British diplomats were last night frantically trying to contact their Arab counterparts to establish whether the 31-year-old Durham University PhD student is now a free man.
The Crown Prince pardoned the prisoners to give them an ‘opportunity to start a new life and ease the suffering of their families’. He also pledged to settle their debts.
The acts of clemency are an annual event to mark National Day in the United Arab Emirates, which falls next Sunday. Mr Hedges’s wife Daniela Tejada, 27, had written to the UAE’s rulers begging for clemency immediately after watching her husband being jailed for life last Wednesday.
However, hopes for a quick release appeared doubtful last night after Emirati criminal lawyer Yousuf al Bahar said Mr Hedges ‘is almost certainly not on the list’, adding: ‘Most of those who are pardoned each year tend to have committed financial crimes, drug offences or lowlevel violence. Mr Hedges’s case is very different as it concerns national security.’
A spokesman for Miss Tejada said: ‘We have no information regarding the list of names.’