I'm back. And what not to do in Dubai.

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a nice weekend, and those that went to the Westlife gig had a great time! I was taking a week of much needed R&R and sampling some of Europes finest beverages. It was very refreshing!


Now, on the plane flying back to Muscat, I read with some interest the story of the British man, Lee Bradley Brown (39) died in custody at the Bur Dubai police station on Tuesday April 12, 2011.

He was reportedly staying at the Burj Al Arab hotel on a last minute holiday - I wonder what kind of deal he got? In this article, it stated that he ran his own maintenance business and traveled on his own. He was arrested for verbally abusing a chamber maid, and apparently attempting to throw her off of a balcony at the hotel. I wonder just how drunk the guy was.

So it then appears he was arrested on the 6th of April (and he died on the 12th of April). Now here is where things start to get a little questionable. It's certainly not alarming that the guy was arrested for being drunk and verbally (and physically) assaulting someone, and I'd expect him to be arrested and put into a jail for processing.

But here are where I start to have questions:

1/ How long does it take to process a person for being drunk/disorderly? I'd suggest that it does not take 6 days to arrest someone, let them sober up, put them in front of a circuit judge and have bail set. Upon further reading in The National, it appears that he was denied bail due to the severity of the charges.

2/ The man's family contacted the British Embassy to say that he was in jail. Not the other way around. This means that the Dubai Police failed to notify the British Embassy that they had arrested one of it's citizens. That, to me is a problem. As an expatriate living in the Middle East I've always been told that in the extremely unlikely event of being arrested here, my Embassy would be notified automatically. Again, the article in The National states that the Embassy was notified on the next day, the 7th - yet the Embassy did not know anything about it when contacted by Lee's sister (as reported in the Daily Mail).

3/ Regardless of the fact that I find it odd that the guy had a photocopy of his passport in his cell with him, other prisoners there still contacted his family, who notified the Embassy of the situation - so for those saying that the beatings were a "pack of lies", they are just not quite getting their heads around it are they - the family contacted the Embassy, not the other way around, meaning that someone in that jail saw what happened, got a number, and spoke to the man's family.

4/ Dubai's Attorney General stated, “The initial forensic report attributed Brown’s death to asphyxia. The deceased choked on his own vomit". He then went on to say, "The report also pointed to traces of hashish in his blood and urine samples.” So I guess that's ok then? And I assume he meant traces of THC and not hashish, and that he neglected to consider that THC stays in a persons system (when testing the blood) for months after exposure.

5/ Again, according to the Attorney General, Lee started vomiting the day before but declined medial assistance (perhaps they asked him telepathically?), and he subsequently died choking on his own vomit. Surely that's a sign of negligence from the Police as they were fully aware the guy was ill, and yet still left him to die.

So, to sum up:

Don't go to Dubai, get drunk and attempt to throw someone off a balcony and have 'Hashish' in your blood, you might just die from it.

le fin.
I'm back. And what not to do in Dubai. I'm back. And what not to do in Dubai. Reviewed by Sythe on Monday, April 18, 2011 Rating: 5

9 comments:

  1. Woaah...
    Biased much?
    You're all basing this on assumption after assumption.
    I'm not saying that the Dubai Police are angels, but don't go building a court case on assumptions.
    And BTW, BBC's article does not tell the same details.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the comment!

    I referenced news articles for everything I've written about, so, no, not biased much. Try clicking the links and reading the referenced material!

    I'm not building a court case, just merely making a few observations on what is a very sad story.

    ReplyDelete
  3. indian expat ceo scumbagApril 18, 2011 at 1:19 PM

    no i've been following it and the post is not biased at all. sick people. embassy is to blame too. wouldn't want to hurt the flow of the big bucks would we

    ReplyDelete
  4. I am with you on this one and perfect assumptions. I lived in Dubai and have seen worse at Police Station where they treat people like scumbags. But then where in Dubai do they treat people any better. Well Sythe 40 years ago they were in Barastis and they are a nation made by money not history or culture - so what do you expect from them and everything here was build by other people and carbon copies of other nation and culture.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Heard about this one on the radio in Dubai :) Their story is entirely different though. Go figure. :) I wonder what the investigation will show...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Afraid you didn't research so well. Fact He was staying at The Burj Al Arab Hotel in Jumeriah. Far cry from Bur Dubai. The Gulf news quoted that traces of hash were found in his blood, also quoted that he tried to throw the Nepalese room attendant over the internal balcony. You cannot judge this as you would in your own country, drink and drugs are a big no,no. There are no circuit judges here, just a very slow judicial system. But, hey! who are we to judge the system. Utopia it sure ain't, but where is?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks for the correction - you are absolutely right, I just mixed up the name of the police station and the hotel, corrected it now.

    Traces of hash was not found in his blood. Traces of THC were. THC can come from things other than Hash - my point being he could have been smoking weed in the UK and then flew for a holiday. I suspect that it's not exactly easy to find dope in Dubai, especially if you are a tourist that's just landed there.

    If attempting to throw someone off of a balcony is not "physically assaulting" someone (to quote myself above) - what is it?! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Dubai Authorities...hypocritical merchant bankers!!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. You look so well, welcome back

    ReplyDelete

This is a free blog hosted in the USA, comments are not moderated and should be treated as individual observations made by the commenter, they are not the views of the author of this blog unless specifically noted as such (eg a comment posted under the account of the blog owner). Should an individual or company wish a specific comment(s) removed please contact me at mrsythe[at]gmail[dot]com and inform me and I will delete it as soon as I read the email.

Powered by Blogger.