Matthew Hedges To Be Released

[grumpy01]

Well done to Jeremy Hunt and his officials on gaining Mr Hedges release.Would Bojo have been as successful?

[HansUrbancka]

I wonder what we would do in the UK if a foreign student entered our Country to research the country’s security strategy for a PhD.?

Hans.

[dannyk13]

Naomi, in oder to be pardoned they must either have confessed their guilt or have been found guilty.In this case as he was not found guilty by a court he must have pleaded guilty. even though he might be innocent.

[naomi24]

danny, he was found guilty. He was sentenced to life in prison.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/26/matthew-hedges-jailed-british-academic-pardoned-by-uae

[Baldric]

/// At the news conference, an official showed a video - seen by Sky News - purporting to show Mr Hedges confessing to the charges against him, in which he said he was a member of MI6 ///

https://news.sky.com/story/uae-claims-british-academic-matthew-hedges-confessed-to-being-a-spy-11564019

[dannyk13]

Naomi, ok I missed that, but I still think that his pardon was conditional on him confessing.

[naomi24]

danny, I see no evidence whatsoever to suggest that.

[dannyk13]

Fair enough Naomi, I am not going to argue this to death.

[youngmafbog]

When will people stop going to these hell holes?

And if they do when will they stop photographing officials and security places.

Some never learn

[naomi24]

danny, in fairness you don't have anything to support your supposition - and I can't see anything that supports it.

[dannyk13]

Naomi, see my post at 13.00.

[sanmac]

I think that all this commotion and fuss is to conceal the fact that the UAE have turned this clever chappie into a double-agent who will return to the UK disguised as a mole.

[ToraToraTora]

not sure it is well done to be fair, eejit should never have gone there. Gawd knows what we had to bribe them with to get this plonker home.

[ludwig]

//...who will return to the UK disguised as a mole. //

He should be fairly easy to spot.

[naomi24]

Danny, I saw your post at 13.00.

[ichkeria]

What I want to know is will we get lots of social media pics of his “welcome home”from the comely Mrs Hedges. Something even more intimate than the ones we’ve been treated too already. I think I’d confess to anything to get back to that ;-)

[sanmac]

Ludwig at 1414, I really don't think that this guy has the intelligence to realise that.

[DTCwordfan]

Thanks Hans - you picked up on what I thought.

An Arab in our backyard researching defence and strategy issues - with the Welsh next door and Ireland a short driver away and we wouldn't get concerned about a spy in the camp. Come off it. AB News would be spitting brimstone.

More seriously, there are organisations out there fronting as research and 'quasi-independent' on the face of it. I have had experience of the East-West Centre, based out of Hawaii it and there for energy analysis across the barrel in the Far East - academic (humph) and who funds it, the CIA.....

I think that this is similar - take one Arabic speaking academic, Arabic from Exeter and fronted through Durham for politics and funded by MI6 - or, or the CIA, the raison d'etre being Abu Dhabi and Iran as to its *** population and the way the Emirates would react in various political scenarios in the Gulf - and guess who controls the Straits of Hormuz, the bottleneck to the Gulf at large.

Nope, in my book, he is a spy, albeit a second tier one. Glad they have pardoned him though.

[DTCwordfan]

the stars (Allah wouldn't believe it) equating to Shi-ite

[andy-hughes]

I spoke about this with the present Mrs Hughes, who has extensive experience of working in Abu Dhabi, and she said that any British visitor needs to be aware before they travel, that the Arab culture is very VERY different from our own, and you have to tread carefully because its really easy to cause deep offence in entire ignorance.

That said, she also pointed out that very soon after being in the area, you learn how twitchy the Arab people are around Westerners, and suspicion is a standard reaction, so it's wise not to do anything that could even loosely be interpreted as trying to examine their culture too closely.

If my wife, as a Schools Inspector, has understood those simple rules, why has someone raised there not understood them better than he clearly did?

Either this gentleman was a spy and was caught, and is extremely lucky to enjoy the largesse of the government, or he is a naïve idiot who has found out what hubris means, and is even luckier still.