I'm back. And what not to do in Dubai.

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a nice weekend, and those that went to the Westlife gig had a great time! I was taking a week of much needed R&R and sampling some of Europes finest beverages. It was very refreshing!

Now, on the plane flying back to Muscat, I read with some interest the story of the British man, Lee Bradley Brown (39) died in custody at the Bur Dubai police station on Tuesday April 12, 2011.

He was reportedly staying at the Burj Al Arab hotel on a last minute holiday - I wonder what kind of deal he got? In this article, it stated that he ran his own maintenance business and traveled on his own. He was arrested for verbally abusing a chamber maid, and apparently attempting to throw her off of a balcony at the hotel. I wonder just how drunk the guy was.

So it then appears he was arrested on the 6th of April (and he died on the 12th of April). Now here is where things start to get a little questionable. It's certainly not alarming that the guy was arrested for being drunk and verbally (and physically) assaulting someone, and I'd expect him to be arrested and put into a jail for processing.

But here are where I start to have questions:

1/ How long does it take to process a person for being drunk/disorderly? I'd suggest that it does not take 6 days to arrest someone, let them sober up, put them in front of a circuit judge and have bail set. Upon further reading in The National, it appears that he was denied bail due to the severity of the charges.

2/ The man's family contacted the British Embassy to say that he was in jail. Not the other way around. This means that the Dubai Police failed to notify the British Embassy that they had arrested one of it's citizens. That, to me is a problem. As an expatriate living in the Middle East I've always been told that in the extremely unlikely event of being arrested here, my Embassy would be notified automatically. Again, the article in The National states that the Embassy was notified on the next day, the 7th - yet the Embassy did not know anything about it when contacted by Lee's sister (as reported in the Daily Mail).

3/ Regardless of the fact that I find it odd that the guy had a photocopy of his passport in his cell with him, other prisoners there still contacted his family, who notified the Embassy of the situation - so for those saying that the beatings were a "pack of lies", they are just not quite getting their heads around it are they - the family contacted the Embassy, not the other way around, meaning that someone in that jail saw what happened, got a number, and spoke to the man's family.

4/ Dubai's Attorney General stated, “The initial forensic report attributed Brown’s death to asphyxia. The deceased choked on his own vomit". He then went on to say, "The report also pointed to traces of hashish in his blood and urine samples.” So I guess that's ok then? And I assume he meant traces of THC and not hashish, and that he neglected to consider that THC stays in a persons system (when testing the blood) for months after exposure.

5/ Again, according to the Attorney General, Lee started vomiting the day before but declined medial assistance (perhaps they asked him telepathically?), and he subsequently died choking on his own vomit. Surely that's a sign of negligence from the Police as they were fully aware the guy was ill, and yet still left him to die.

So, to sum up:

Don't go to Dubai, get drunk and attempt to throw someone off a balcony and have 'Hashish' in your blood, you might just die from it.

le fin.