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Dubai Brit Jailed for 4 Years For a Speck of Puff

Reported by News Editor / Submitted 08-02-08 19:32

Travellers to the United Arab Emirates were advised to apply ‘extreme caution’ this week after a 43 year old Brit was jailed for 4 years after cops detected a microscopic quantity of hashish stuck in the tread of his shoe.

“The amount of the drug found on his shoe (0.003 grams) would not be visible to the naked eye and weighs less than a single grain of sugar,” London’s Evening Standard reported, adding that Keith Brown had been arrested when passing through Dubai Airport in transit from Ethiopia to London.

Two more 20 something British travellers were arrested with small amounts of cocaine and cannabis at the Airport, local newspaper 7 Days reported this week, joining31-year-old Big Brother executive Cat Le-Huy, who this week began his third week in custody after being stopped initially for carrying legal over-the-counter jet lag aid melatonin.

The Hampstead TV executive was reportedly seized at immigrationarbitrarily, interrogated, strip-searched and urine tested before being asked to sign papers in Arabic which he couldn’t read.

Campaigning website TheTruthAboutDubai.org said airport officials are now holding him while they test tiny specks of dirt in his luggage, which they allege to be hashish. Friends of Cat said he’s struggling with prison food and isolation though otherwise ‘bearing up quite well’ and launched a campaign for his immediate release this week.

"It has been quite scary in that they initially said he would be held for 24 hours, then that was 48 hours, which became a week, and then they added a further two weeks,” Radha Stirling, from Cat’s UK based legal team told the Hampstead & Highgate Express newspaper.

"We are worried he will be held for three to six months without any charge or any hearing.”

The Arab Times meanwhile, reported this week that 19 French visitors have been jailed on drugs charges in Dubai in the last 18 months, with four picked up on New Years Day alone, adding weight to the stark warning issued by Cat’s partner designer Mildred Ho.

“The moral of this story is, no one is safe: If you go to Dubai, you are guilty until proven innocent under their unique little brand of sharia-lite laws,” she wrote on a Live Journal posting.

“DO NOT be fooled by their campaign of hearts and minds and their self appointed branding as some sort of open-minded oasis in the Middle East. Diz (Cat) is not alone: he is actually in the company of many other hapless victims who were singled out to make an example of. Do not think this could not happen to you. His story needs to get out so this does not happen to anyone else.

This is the message we need to get across: Dubai is not a safe tourist destination for Westerners.”

Whether Cat has so far met Grooverider in jail remains unclear though a ray of light emerged in the Arab Times this week, concerning the 19 French jailed in the last 18 months. Though 7 still have to go to trial, the Times reported that 11 of the 12 convicted French people have already been released, under pardons issued by Dubai’s rulers.

http://www.fairtrials.net

http://users.livejournal.com/_yungfuktoi_/306878.html

http://www.myspace.com/yungfuktoi_mildred (Mildred Ho: ‘On Saturday, my best friend and partner, Cat Le-huy (aka Diz) was arrested at Dubai Airport for having melatonin on his person, an over-the-counter jet lag aid. He now faces up to four years in Dubai prison for 'drug smuggling' . . .’)

http://thetruthaboutdubai.com/?cat=4 (‘UK Tourist Arrested in Dubai Airport for Melatonin, Imprisoned Without Charges . . .’)

Reported by Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)
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