Infamous video leads to a criminal investigation
In an unprecedented move, prosecutors in the United Arab Emirates have detained a member of the country’s ruling family who—according to a horrific video released last month—tortured a local grain farmer. The 2004 recording shows Sheik Issa bin Zayed Al Nahyan sodomizing the man with a cattle prod, beating him with a wooden plank and firing an automatic weapon into the sand around him—all because the farmer supposedly lost a shipment of grain. The sheik, who enlisted a uniformed police officer to help with the torture, is now in a jail cell while authorities pursue a criminal investigation. “This is to ensure that all human rights obligations are met and enforced, that all national laws are applied equally and with transparency to all,” reads a statement from the Judicial Department.