{"id":48503,"date":"2018-11-21T17:01:09","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T17:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/?p=48503"},"modified":"2018-11-21T17:01:09","modified_gmt":"2018-11-21T17:01:09","slug":"uae-court-sentences-british-student-to-life-for-spying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/uae-court-sentences-british-student-to-life-for-spying\/","title":{"rendered":"UAE court sentences British student to life for spying"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-48504\" src=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Matthew-Hedges.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"799\" height=\"448\" srcset=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Matthew-Hedges.jpg 667w, https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Matthew-Hedges-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Matthew-Hedges-390x220.jpg 390w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px\" \/>A United Arab Emirates court sentenced British student Matthew Hedges to life in jail on Wednesday after convicting him of spying, a family spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cWe can confirm that he was sentenced to life in prison,\u201d the spokesperson told AFP.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThe hearing lasted less than five minutes, and his lawyer was not present.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he was \u201cdeeply shocked and disappointed\u201d by the decision of the UAE court.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cToday\u2019s verdict is not what we expect from a friend and trusted partner of the United Kingdom and runs contrary to earlier assurances,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Hedges, a 31-year-old PhD student, was researching the UAE\u2019s foreign and internal security policies after the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011 when he was detained at Dubai airport on May 5.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">He was granted temporary release on October 29 but constantly monitored until Wednesday\u2019s court hearing, only his third since his arrest.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">UAE attorney general Hamad Al-Shamsi said earlier this month that Hedges was accused of \u201cspying for a foreign country, jeopardizing the military, political and economic security of the state.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Hedges has repeatedly denied the charges.<\/p>\n<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\r\n<script>(function(d, s, id) {\r\n  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\r\n  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\r\n  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\r\n  js.src = \"\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_GB\/all.js#xfbml=1\";\r\n  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\r\n}(document, \"script\", \"facebook-jssdk\"));<\/script>\r\n <fb:comments href=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/uae-court-sentences-british-student-to-life-for-spying\/\" font=\"arial\" num_posts=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" colorscheme=\"light\"  style=\"background:#FFFFFF;padding-top:0px;\r\npadding-right:0px;\r\npadding-bottom:0px;\r\npadding-left:0px;\r\nmargin-top:0px;\r\nmargin-right:0px;\r\nmargin-bottom:0px;\r\nmargin-left:0px;\r\n\"><\/fb:comments>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A United Arab Emirates court sentenced British student Matthew Hedges to life in jail on Wednesday after convicting him of spying, a family spokesperson said. \u201cWe can confirm that he was sentenced to life in prison,\u201d the spokesperson told AFP. \u201cThe hearing lasted less than five minutes, and his lawyer was not present.\u201d British Foreign &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48505,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48503\/revisions\/48505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}