David Haigh launches campaign to end UK’s extradition deal with UAE

Former chairman of Leeds United David Haigh, who was arrested in Dubai in 2013 and held for 15 months without trial, has begun a campaign to abolish the UK’s extradition treaty with the UAE, The Independent reported.

Mr Haigh told The Independent he is launching a campaign to end the UK’s extradition relationship with the UAE and has set up a social enterprise which aims to help those who find themselves trapped in the legal system over there.

He said he is working as an expert witness in extradition hearings in the UK where he describes the torture and lack of due process he suffered.

Although the UK has an extradition treaty with the UAE, under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) it cannot send someone to a country where they may face torture.

Mr Haigh said a UK court has not allowed any extradition to the UAE since 2011 for this reason.

He said: “We’ve got this extradition treaty which is ridiculous because each time there is court case it costs us, the British taxpayer, an awful lot of money.

“It’s not the UAE that pays for it, it’s us – our legal aid, our court systems. So we are spending millions every year on extraditions and we will never ever extradite them because of human rights concerns.

“We are going through the process, spending millions of pounds of our own money and never extraditing people which just seems to me to be an absolutely ridiculous system to have in place.”

He said it is possible for the UAE to change its ways because the country is conscious of what people think of it.

Mr Haigh was detained in Dubai in 2013 after a dispute with his employers GFH Capital – the Dubai arm of private equity firm based in Bahrain.

Read The Independent exclusive interview with David Haigh: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/dubai-torture-jail-u...