AN innocent Brit grandad allegedly suffered savage beatings by Dubai prison guards after being locked up "over a bounced cheque".
Albert Douglas, 60, was jailed earlier this year and has since been forced to drink toilet water and watch cellmates being tortured, supporters claim.
He has now been taken to a hospital for surgery on a shoulder that has been dislocated for five months, according Detained in Dubai.
The advocacy group said doctors were shocked that he had not received treatment earlier.
And despite being in agony, he is too afraid to accept painkillers because it could mean being transferred to an even more brutal psychiatric facility.
Since being arrested seven months ago, Albert has reportedly been beaten by prison guards, denied his heart medication and forced to suffer inhumane conditions, including drinking from a toilet.
He has been repeatedly interrogated and threatened in an effort to make him confess to a crime he did not commit, campaigners say.
The expat tycoon, originally from London, was first held over a bounced cheque that he did not write, according to Detained in Dubai.
It related to alleged debts racked up by his son Wolfgang's failed flooring business.
Albert was fined £2.5million, even though he had no role in the company, and was jailed for three years after losing an appeal.
And even though forensic tests proved the cheque was not his, Albert has now been hit by a string of other trumped-up charges, it is claimed.
His desperate family feared he would die in jail and earlier this year reportedly hired smugglers to whisk him out of the UAE.
But he was caught climbing a fence on the border with Oman and sentenced to an extra three years.
Detained in Dubai CEO Radha Stirling said: “Albert has been in prison for most of the year and as a result, his own business has collapsed, causing new financial cases to be opened against him.
“This is how dangerous Dubai can be to investors.”
'BLOWTORCH' TORTURE
Before his legal nightmare, Albert was a millionaire who drove a Rolls-Royce and lived in a luxury villa on the emirate's Jumeirah Island.
He has spent over £1million in the courts in a vain bid to clear his name.
But in Dubai, courts can find family members and associates criminally liable for another person's debts.
His family is urging the UK government to use diplomatic pressure to help free Albert from the hellhole jail.
Wolfgang, 34, said earlier this year: “They went after my father because I had come home to the UK when my cheques bounced.
“The jails over there are not like the jails here. Torture is Monday for them.
"He did not commit a crime to begin with, he lost faith in the law and that is why he tried to escape - he holds his hands up to that.
“He was brought to a prison where he was beaten so badly that afterwards, he would bleed from his ears.
"Twenty-year-old boys in his cell were being hung upside down and beaten for sport.
"He is in an environment where a young man below his bunk had his privates burnt off with blowtorches to get confessions."
Albert himself said from Bur Dubai prison in April: "I fear that I will not get out of here alive.
"I am innocent and being made to pay the penalty for the debts of my son. I would not wish this on my worst enemy."
Comments