“The government of Abu Dhabi unequivocally condemns the actions depicted in the video,” said a statement carried by the official WAM news agency, more than a week after ABC television broadcast the footage that sparked an outcry among human rights campaigners.
The video tape, smuggled out by a Texas businessman, appeared to show Sheikh Issa bin Zayed Al Nahayan, a brother of UAE President and Abu Dhabi ruler H H Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahayan, mercilessly beating a man.
New York-based Human Rights Watch on Tuesday demanded that the United Arab Emirates renounce the use of torture and launch an investigation into the abuse on the video.
The Abu Dhabi statement did not name Sheikh Issa but promised to publish the results of an inquiry into the incident.
“All persons are equal before the law, without distinction in regard to race, nationality, religious belief and social status,” said the statement attributed to the human rights office of the emirate’s judicial department.
“The HRO of the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department will conduct a comprehensive review of the matter immediately and make its findings public at the earliest opportunity,” it added.
The new statement from the Abu Dhabi authorities was welcomed by HRW as a “positive first step”.
“The real test of this investigation will be whether it leads to punishment of the people involved in this brutal attack and changes to prevent something like this from happening again,” said the watchdog’s Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson.
On Wednesday last week, ABC broadcast the video showing a man it said was Sheikh Issa beating a captive with whips, cattle prods and wooden panels with protruding nails.
Assisted by police, he poured salt in the man’s wounds and ran over him with a sports utility vehicle. The victim — who needed months of hospital care — was reportedly an Afghan trader who lost a load of grain worth $ 5,000. In its earlier statement, HRW called the beating “an appalling miscarriage of justice.”