Australian man slapped, beaten and threatened with electrocution after applying for a job in Qatar

It has been revealed that an Australian train driver has been subjected to brutal torture by Emirati authorities whilst being detained in the UAE on espionage charges after applying for a job in Qatar.

Naim Abbas, who has lived in the UAE for nearly ten years working for the country’s travel authority, was arrested in October 2017 after authorities found that he had applied for a job with the Roads and Traffic Authority in Qatar, a state which the UAE has currently severed all ties with.  

In a series of meetings with Australian consular officials, Abbas detailed in explicit terms the torture and mistreatment he has suffered at the hands of Emirati security officials since his arrest last year.

Details of this testimony recently came to light after an Australian broadsheet newspaper obtained copies of the subsequent consular reports - which show the 63-year-old complaining of being threatened, slapped and beaten by prison warders, placed in an electric chair, and “forced to stand upright in his cell for two nights.”

One report from April 24 2018 states: “(Naim Abbas) raised two issues in relation to his initial place of detention with UAE State ­Security. That he had been placed in an electric chair for questioning and his interrogator threatened to turn it on, and that he had been verbally abused and threatened with physical abuse over the course of a several days by one particular officer.’’

Another, dated March 27, shows Abbas – who is reportedly being detained alongside alleged terrorists -  had told consular officials that “he had been forced to stand up in his cell for two consecutive nights”, slapped by security officials and routinely subjected to “stress-and-duress” techniques.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Julia Bishop has said that the government have since raised Abbas’s case “privately” with UAE authorities.