Matthew Hedges accuses UAE of launching smear campaign

The British academic Matthew Hedges, who was wrongly imprisoned in the UAE, has accused the Gulf state of launching a smear campaign against him by sharing medical records and intimate photos

Hedges condemned the document as a gross invasion of privacy including a psychiatric report and photographs of him in his cell.

Matthew Hedges, 35, who spent six months in prison in the country as a PhD student and was sentenced to life in jail before his release in November 2018, says the UAE has even released photos of him in solitary confinement.

He first became aware of the dossier after being contacted by a UK newspaper, who had received a copy of it from the embassy in London.

The document was originally created and submitted to the UN in June last year, after Mr Hedges gave evidence to the Committee Against Torture about his ordeal.

The dossier comes four years after his detention, in which time Mr Hedges has consistently detailed his time spent in solitary confinement, including being forced-fed medications, repeatedly interrogated and being deprived of sleep by being kept on the floor of a windowless cell where the lights were not turned off for months.

He was arrested at Dubai Airport on May 5, 2018, as he was poised to leave the country, having been in the UAE on a two-week research trip for his PhD in security.