The wealthy Gulf prince at the center of a “torture tape” scandal has been accused of attacking at least 25 other people in incidents that have reportedly also been caught on film.
Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, half-brother of the man who owns Manchester City football club, is now under investigation in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after the shocking tape showed him beating a man with a nailed plank, setting him on fire, attacking him with a cattle prod and running him over.
But now lawyers for US businessman Bassam Nabulsi, who smuggled the tape out of the UAE, have written to the justice minister of Abu Dhabi — the most powerful of the emirates that make up the UAE — claiming to have at least two hours of footage showing Issa attacking other victims.
“I have more than two hours of video footage showing Sheikh Issa’s involvement in the torture of more than 25 people,” wrote Texas-based lawyer Anthony Buzbee in a letter.
The news of more torture videos involving Sheikh Issa is another huge blow to the international image of the UAE.
The oil-rich state has been keen to develop relations with the West and to promote an aura of moderation and tolerance. But the shocking video of Sheikh Issa torturing Afghan grain merchant Mohammed Shah Poor, whom Issa said had cheated him in a business deal, has heavily dented the UAE’s reputation. Particularly damaging was the apparent involvement of a policeman in the torture.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
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