Hay Festival: Manager seeks UK prosecution of UAE minister over assault claims
- Published
Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan's lawyers have said he is "surprised and saddened" by the allegations
A Hay Festival employee who alleges she was sexually assaulted by a government minister in Abu Dhabi whilst representing the literary event is to seek a prosecution in the UK.
Project manager Caitlin McNamara claims she was attacked by Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan on a private island in February.
Ms McNamara, 32, who has waived her right to anonymity, said she visited the United Arab Emirates to organise Hay's first event in the Middle East.
Sheikh Nahyan, a member of the ruling family in Abu Dhabi, denies the allegations.
The 69-year-old's lawyers have said they were "surprised and saddened" by the claim.
Ms McNamara told BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour that a meeting had been arranged with Mr Nahyan, the UAE's minister for tolerance, to discuss human rights concerns ahead of the festival.
"I had been working hard to try and use Hay's platform and access to very prominent and influential people in the UAE, to campaign on some of the issues that Hay stands for and that I stand for, including freedom of expression," said Ms McNamara.
"I thought it was a bit rich for us to be there celebrating freedom of expression and flying in writers from around the world to talk openly on stage, whilst there were writers and poets and artists locked up on the basis of freedom expression."
Ms McNamara said she was taken out of town to a villa on a private island.
She described being led into a room full of pictures of Sheik Nahyan with celebrities, the Pope and world leaders and that when he eventually arrived it was clear that her concerns over human rights were not being well received.
Ms McNamara claims that Sheikh Nahyan then touched her arm and leg.
"I said no," she said. "At that point it clicked and I felt like a complete idiot.
"But also, my mind was just in a complete panic trying to think, okay, I'm on an island at night without my bag in this concrete villa, through checkpoints, with a very powerful man who I don't want to upset."
She said she was in the villa for four hours and despite attempts to leave the attack progressed with him "grabbing and kissing" her.
She alleges that on a tour of the villa she was then seriously sexually assaulted.
"I pushed him off, and was able to convince him somehow to take me down to the main entrance where another man was there," she said.
"I had to rely on his driver to take me back to my hotel, even then I wasn't sure where I was going."
'They own the law'
Ms McNamara said she immediately called Peter Florence, director of the Hay Festival, to tell him what had happened.
She drove to Dubai where a British consul general met her in a hotel and took a statement.
The British Embassy in Dubai then helped her to get a flight out of the UAE. Ms McNamara, who has been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, went to the Metropolitan Police in July.
She is receiving support from the barrister Baroness Kennedy QC, who has said the Foreign Office must call for the minister's dismissal.
"I encouraged her to report the case to the Metropolitan Police and put the case into the hands of the Crown Prosecution Service," said Baroness Kennedy.
"The problem about this, is that in these places where there is impunity, this man, he's so senior, they own the law."
Baroness Kennedy says the Crown Prosecution Service should invoke the principal of "universal jurisdiction".
"It has to be a very grievous crime. This was, in our definition that we use for rape nowadays, a rape that took place."
"Even when she was put into the car with the driver she didn't know if the instruction was to dump her in the desert".
"So the question is, can there be a prosecution here? He owns properties here. He has huge assets here. He comes here all the time to spend his money. So I would like to see us invoking universal jurisdiction," she said.
Chair of the Hay Festival Caroline Michel has previously said it would not return to Abu Dhabi while Sheikh Nahyan remained in his ministerial position.
Ms Michel described the alleged incident as an "appalling violation" and a "hideous abuse of trust and position."
'Soul-destroying'
The Foreign Office said its staff in the UK and UAE had been in contact with Ms McNamara and it would "continue to do everything we can to support her."
The festival in Abu Dhabi went ahead despite the alleged attack on Ms McNamara.
She said that in hindsight she could understand why the festival had continued, but it was "very, very difficult".
"I had left the country and it was really kind of soul-destroying to watch this man who had assaulted me, the minister for tolerance get on stage on a festival platform, and be applauded, celebrated for this thing that I had built," she said.
- Published18 October 2020
