Source ABC
Naim Aziz Abbas is being held in the Al Wathba prison outside Abu Dhabi. Naim Abbas has been held at Al Wathba since October 2017, when he was arrested on spying charges. Human rights organisations have previously raised concerns about treatment of prisoners at Al Wathba. His family want the Australian Government to intervene to move him to another facility. His relatives are pleading to have him moved out of a notorious prison that houses “dangerous terrorists”.
Naim Aziz Abbas was arrested in Dubai in October 2017, accused of spying on behalf of Qatar, and is now being held in the Al Wathba prison facility outside Abu Dhabi. A large number of international advocacy groups claim inmates at Al Wathba are often subjected to torture and various human rights violations.
Mr Abbas’s brother Adil has told the ABC the family is growing increasingly anxious about their 64-year-old relative’s welfare. “He’s being detained with very, very dangerous terrorist group in a very restricted section in Al Wathba prison, so we are very worried about his welfare and his safety,” Adil Abbas said.
“I need our government to intervene to transfer [my brother] to a less restricted security prison.”said Adil Abbas.
In May, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop raised Mr Abbas’s case with her UAE counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan during a face-to-face meeting in Parliament House.
A spokeswoman for Ms Bishop said consular officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) had met with Naim Aziz Abbas and were “providing consular assistance, including liaising with his family in Australia”.
Naim Aziz Abbas, an Iraqi-born Australian citizen, had worked as a train driver in Sydney before moving to Dubai in 2009 to work for the UAE Roads and Transport Authority.
Mr Abbas’s case is considered particularly sensitive given political and military tensions between the UAE and Qatar have intensified over the past year, with the UAE continuing to accuse Qatar of supporting terrorism.
Last week he appeared briefly in court where, according to consular notes, the judge told him he was suspected of passing information about the Dubai Road and Transport Authority to the Qatar Government in exchange for money.
He pleaded not guilty to the charge and told the court he had travelled to make a presentation to the Qatar Government on information he had learned from his own experience, not from the UAE Government.
He also told the court the payment he had received was to cover his travel expenses only, and that he informed his UAE employer of his trip, which was taken during his annual leave.
Naim Aziz Abbas’s trip to Qatar was made in 2012 — before diplomatic relations with the UAE had soured.
One Australian woman who was jailed there in 2015 over Facebook posts critical of the UAE’s justice system described being shackled at the ankles, strip-searched and forced to sleep on a concrete floor with no access to toilet paper or eating utensils.
