UAE pardons Hedges

The United Arab Emirates yesterday pardoned British academic Matthew Hedges just days after sentencing him to life in prison for spying in a case. The UK thanked its Gulf ally and Hedges’s wife expressed her joy after he was among more than 700 prisoners pardoned by UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan for next month’s National Day. “Mr. Hedges will be permitted to leave the UAE once formalities are completed,” Jaber al-Lamki, a government media official, said in a statement.

The UAE showed footage at a news conference in the capital Abu Dhabi in which Hedges confessed to being an MI6 foreign intelligence agent. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt expressed gratiwtude to the oil-rich state, which London considers a strategic Middle East ally. “Fantastic news about Matthew Hedges,” Hunt said on Twitter. Hedges’s wife Daniela Tejada, who last saw him on the day he was sentenced, said in a statement: “The presidential pardon for Matt is the best news we could have received.” Hedges, a 31-year-old researcher at Durham University, was sentenced to life in jail by a court in Abu Dhabi last week after he was convicted of spying for a foreign country.

Lamki said that Hedges was “a 100-percent secret service agent and was convicted of espionage.” He said Hedges confessed to gathering information about the UAE ruling family, military and its involvement in the Yemen war. “He confirmed he collected sensitive and classified information about the UAE,” he said, calling the evidence “irrefutable”. Hedges’s role was “to gather classified information about the UAE military capabilities ... and sensitive information on UAE key government figures including members of the UAE ruling families,” he said.

Hedges was arrested on May 5 at Dubai airport. Lamki said a lawyer had been appointed to defend Hedges who was also allowed to speak to his family repeatedly during his detention. The presidential pardon came in response to a letter by Hedges’s family delivered by a British official, he said. UAE state minister for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash said the pardon allowed the two countries to refocus to developing their relations. “It was always a UAE hope that this matter would be resolved through the common channels of our longstanding partnership. This was a straightforward matter that became unnecessarily complex despite the UAE’s best efforts,” he said in a statement.