Briton in ‘spy’ ordeal hooked on jail drugs

THE academic jailed as a British spy in Abu Dhabi is still dependent on the drugs he was forcefed during captivity.

Matthew Hedges, pictured, was arrested a year ago and jailed for life after he was falsely accused of being an MI6 agent.

During his six months in solitary confinement he was given high doses of strong drugs, shackled and blindfolded.

But the 31-year-old Durham University researcher, who was pardoned and freed in November, suffers from post traumatic stress disorder, has to take a ‘cocktail of drugs’ to cope and wants to take legal action over Foreign Office ‘failures’.

Every morning he takes small amounts of Xanax and Valium, which he was given ‘excessive’ doses of in confinement.

‘I am dependent but not addicted,’ he told the Sunday Telegraph. ‘I have to carry the medication with me.’

He says he was given ‘up to ten times’ too much of the drugs on a daily basis.