Briton held in UAE not a spy, says wife

THE wife of a British academic being held in solitary confinement in the United Arab Emirates has said her husband was not spying and was only there for research purposes.

Matthew Hedges, a PhD student at Durham University, was reportedly taken into custody at Dubai airport on May 5 after travelling to the UAE to interview sources about the country’s foreign policy and security strategy.

The 31-year-old, who lives in Exeter, has been held without charge ever since, and his wife, Daniela Tejada, is calling on UAE officials to “admit that they’ve made a mistake” and release him. Ms Tejada, 27, said she has not been told what exactly her husband is accused of, but said she would not rule out the prospect of him being accused of spying. She said reports that he has been accused of spying are “highly speculative”, adding: “But we’ve been kept in the dark so it’s impossible to know. “The only reason he went to the UAE was for his academic research.” Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt is understood to have personally raised Mr Hedges’s case with his UAE counterpart amid concerns over his mental health THE most powerful hurricane on record to hit Florida’s Panhandle has left widespread destruction and at least two people dead. A man was killed by a tree falling on a Florida home and an 11-year-old girl died after a car port was picked up by the wind and came down on her house in Georgia.