Briton waits for Dubai verdict over 'offensive tweet'

Right now, from Saudi Arabia and Qatar to the United Arab Emirates, billions are being spent in the Gulf to lure international businessmen there.

Dubai's government says a sound legal environment has attracted about 20,000 international companies to the emirate.

But on Monday one British businessman could be sentenced to years in a Dubai prison for allegedly sending an offensive tweet about a business partner.

It is part of an almost two-year business dispute between a 38-year-old English solicitor and his former employer in Dubai, investment house GFH Capital, in which the Dubai legal system appears to favour one side.

Squalid conditions

David Haigh, the Englishman in question who once came to the rescue of Leeds United, flew out to discuss a business venture with his former employer but his trip was overshadowed by a financial dispute.

Hours after touching down in Dubai, after entering the GFH Capital offices, he was arrested on suspicion of fraud and locked up.

He has been detained in squalid conditions in a detention cell at the back of a big police station in Dubai for most of the time since May 2014.

I've seen those conditions.

Dozens of foreign detainees share two squat loos and two showers. There's little privacy, cramped conditions and a general atmosphere of helplessness.

Haigh has been detained in a Dubai prison since 2014

After 15 months he was convicted by a Dubai court of misappropriating items of monetary value from a position of trust from his former Dubai-based employer and sentenced to two years in prison - the majority of which he had already served.

Haigh's lawyer says he is considering seeking a retrial of his criminal conviction.

However, in mid-November, two days before Haigh was due to return home at the end of his sentence, he found out that he would not be leaving after all, as the authorities were looking into allegations that he had broken a law on cybercrime in relation to tweets sent from his Twitter account in March 2015.

The UAE's Cybercrime Law was established in 2012 to criminalise the misuse of social media, with penalties ranging from a big fine to a lengthy jail term for a wide range of offences including hacking, online fraud as well as for people who seek revenge on someone in the cyber world.

'Repressive'

The new allegations against Haigh prompted Human Rights Watch to issue a statement about the situation.

The key bit to note, for anyone thinking of working in Dubai, is this quote from their Deputy Middle East Director, Joe Stork: "If UAE businessmen can have their partners locked up when they don't like the tone of their tweets, one has to question whether the UAE is a safe place to make any form of criticism."

I've repeatedly tried to contact the Dubai authorities about this but they have yet to comment on it.

They have so far spent four months considering cybercrime charges levelled against Haigh, all the while leaving the former Leeds United managing director, who has aspirations to become a Conservative MP, languishing in his cell.

Haigh claims he has not had access to a computer in prison and his British-based supporters were handling his Twitter account on his behalf.

Human Rights Watch described the cyber charges as "repressive" and said the UK government must now call for the Briton's release.

Conservative MP Andrea Jenkyns, a friend of Haigh's, told me she fears for his welfare behind bars and that Haigh had handed a dossier about his mental and physical treatment to the British Embassy.

His lawyer, Alun Jones QC, told me Haigh alleges that since he was imprisoned in May 2014 he was threatened that, if he did not co-operate, to quote Mr Jones, "things would go badly for him in prison".

Mr Jones relayed a story to me about something that he claimed happened in his presence when he visited Haigh in custody last year, something he said he found very disturbing.

"On 17 March a number of lawyers were present and on that occasion a prison guard came in and said that the lawyer for GFH Capital Ltd had reported to him that David Haigh had said in court proceedings in England that prison conditions were bad and was that true?

"The prison guard also said that he had been requested to withdraw privileges from David Haigh in prison and those privileges were very limited. That was plainly a threat. A number of lawyers witnessed that."

'No control'

I have since spoken to GFH Capital about this claim. They declined to comment on the allegations made by Mr Jones, saying they were "nothing new and David Haigh is simply regurgitating issues that are being dealt with by the authorities".

Previously, GFH Capital has said it had no control over the criminal investigation being carried out by the Dubai authorities.

As I said, I have repeatedly tried to speak to the authorities in Dubai but have not heard back from them yet.

Haigh will now hear from them on Monday when he finds out his fate.

His supporters now hope he will be allowed to return to the UK after flying off for what he thought would be a short business trip to Dubai more than 670 days ago.