You can register in Dubai, but there’s a chance you won’t, at least not for a year or so.
R&B singer Trey Songz’s bodyguard, Cornell Whitfield, is the latest Western tourist to run afoul of the sharia-based court system in Dubai, one of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates federation.
It’s a system that critics say unfairly targets unwitting travelers, especially those considered to have some money.
Whitfield, 40, a Miami native who has acted as a bodyguard for many celebrities, including Lil’ Kim, Dallas Cowboys cornerback Trevon Diggs and San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel, was sentenced to a year in prison last week for allegedly “slapping” a man. fan who tried to approach and touch Songz last March at a Dubai hotel.
Whitfield, the father of a young son, is just one in a long line of Westerners who have found themselves facing a nightmare of red tape, arrests and sometimes lengthy detention for what appear to be largely false claims.
The operator of a site called Detained in Dubai says Western tourists often run afoul of the strange judicial system that can trap them there for months or years. Cornell Whitfield (left), bodyguard of Shutterstock R&B singer Trey Songz, is the latest Western tourist to clash with Dubai’s strange court system. Detained in Dubai Dubai is one of the seven emirates that make up the federation of the United Arab Emirates.
Radha Stirling, who has run the site Arrested in Dubai since 2008, when she first helped a friend who was arrested in Dubai, has helped what she says have been “thousands” of tourists arrested there under false pretenses.
Stirling told The Post that most Westerners are naive about what awaits them in Dubai.
Foreigners, he said, are targeted by both Dubai residents and expats who know they can go to the police and file an accusation, often without evidence, and immediately get the police and local prosecutors on their side.
Radha Stirling launched her UK-based site, Detained in Dubai, in 2008 after a colleague found himself in legal trouble in Dubai.
Accusers often ask for large sums of money in exchange for dropping charges, he added. Many tourists choose to go to court, not realizing that judges almost automatically side with the accusers, even if they know that the victims are being extorted.
“Whoever makes the first police report is usually favored in the outcome,” Stirling told The Post.
“So, if I am the one who takes the complaint to the police station, I will probably win that criminal case. “Visitors think that Dubai is a modern, luxurious place and assume that the justice system is like that of the West, when it definitely is not.”
Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos was released after five “hellish” months in Dubai after being detained for touching the arm of a security guard at the airport in July. Arrested in Dubai / SWNS
Earlier this month, New York City college student Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos, 21, who had been sentenced to a year in prison, managed to be released after five “hellish” months in Dubai that began when She was arrested for touching a security device. guard arm at the airport in July.
A 29-year-old Houston woman named Tiarra Allen, known online as “Sassy Trucker,” managed to escape the country in August after being stranded in Dubai for months over an altercation at a car rental agency.
The Stirling organization helped both women secure their release.
In 2022, a UK coroner said the Foreign Office was not doing enough to warn Britons about the risks of visiting Dubai after a London resident, Lee Bradley Brown, “probably” died from beatings and neglect while in police custody there. Brown had been arrested after a verbal altercation with a hotel employee in Dubai in 2011.
Tiarra Allen, a 26-year-old TikTok influencer known online as “Sassy Trucker,” managed to leave Dubai after being stranded there for months due to an altercation at a car rental agency.Tierra Allen/Facebook
Millionaire British businessman Albert Douglas, 62, a long-time resident of the United Arab Emirates, has been imprisoned in Dubai since 2019, when he was arrested because his son’s flooring company went bankrupt there and officials held him responsible for the debts.
Douglas has heart problems, his son Wolfgang Douglas told The Post, and has been repeatedly tortured while in Dubai prisons. So far the family has spent millions trying to get him out, but nothing is working, Wolfgang said.
“If you’re a rich white person, forget it,” he said. “They blackmail you for money and keep increasing the amount and adding (prison) sentences. “It’s a total nightmare.”
British grandfather Albert Douglas, a millionaire who lived in Dubai for years, has been imprisoned and tortured in Dubai prisons since 2019. Arrested in Dubai
The potential problems facing tourists in Dubai stand in strange and stark contrast to the massive $8.7 trillion economic program launched late last year by the emirate’s powerful ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, in which thousands of millions were allocated to prioritize tourism. Dubai is part of a federation of seven sheikhs of the Arabian Peninsula.
Whitfield contacted Stirling when he returned to Dubai recently, completely unaware that he was in legal trouble due to an incident that took place in March outside the Five Palm Jumeirah hotel.
Whitfield was found guilty of assault after slapping a Jordanian man who was drunk and acting in a threatening and aggressive manner towards Songz.
The man initially demanded $60,000 to drop the criminal charges, but Whitfield did not have the money. Stirling said he assumed Dubai’s justice system was fair and would acquit him because he said he was acting in self-defense on behalf of his client.
“His mood goes up and down,” Stirling said. “He is hopeful that his attorney will free him on appeal, but there is no guarantee of that.”
The Post contacted the United Arab Emirates consulate in New York for comment.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn