UAE asked Matthew Hedges to spy on the UK, freed academic says
British student Matthew Hedges, who was sentenced to life in prison in the United Arab Emirates, was asked to turn double agent and spy for the gulf state, he revealed in his first interview since being pardoned.
The 31-year-old was interrogated for up to 15 hours a day, sometimes stood up in ankle cuffs, and told he may never see daylight again, after the Emirates accused him of spying for the UK.
The PhD student said he had confessed “under duress” to the charges, which he claims are unfounded.
Asked to steal documents from the Foreign Office in return for a lenient sentence, Hedges started to question himself, he told the Times.
“I started having a panic attack, I was like ‘How am I supposed to get this information?’”
“They started getting more and more aggressive and I’d have panic attacks for two or three days in a row,” which eventually made him relent, he said. “After all that pressure, I said, ‘OK, fine, whatever, yeah sure’.”
Hedges was picked up at Dubai airport in May while waving off his mother, who was able to alert British authorities.
“The scary reality is if I hadn’t gone with my mother, or if they’d decided to pick me up after going through the gate, no one would have known where I was,” he said.
The student was blindfolded, handcuffed and led away by officials who refused to tell him what was going on.
Though never physically harmed, Hedges was subjected to what he described as psychological torture, and was prescribed a dangerous cocktail of drugs to treat his depression and anxiety. He was later forced to go cold turkey just before a court appearance in October.
Hedges, who was released following international pressure but has not been cleared of the charges, said he he was relieved to be back with his wife Daniela.
“It has been so amazing to see the amount of support, just from total strangers. I haven’t slept some nights, and I’ve just gone through stuff online, I’ve looked at all the videos of Dani, that was incredible to see, the amount of effort, to see how much power and ferocity she had.”