Wife of jailed Qatari royal pleads at UN for his release

He has been in prison since 2013 for an allegedly unpaid debt.

Wife of Qatari royal Sheikh Talal Al Thani, who is in jail since 2013 for an allegedly unpaid debt, pleaded for his release at the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday citing his deteriorating health.
"My husband needs urgent medical care and a lawyer he chooses freely," Sheikh Talal's wife Asma Arian told the UN body in Geneva via video, while submitting an eleventh hour plea for his release.
"An arbitrary 22-year sentence was imposed on him while he was in jail. He is incommunicado in detention and suffers from severe medical conditions he developed in prison," she added.
Arian told Fox News that her husband is being detained at an unidentified facility and his health is deteriorating "due to torture and ill treatment in prison".
The Sheikh has been imprisoned by Qatar's regime. Arian and her American attorney, Mark Somos, rejected the regime's accusation and argued that Qatar's opaque justice system carried out a "politically motivated fabrication of the sheikh's debts".
Urgent appeals to the UN's other human rights bodies, including the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the Special Rapporteur on Torture, and the Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges, have also been submitted.
"We call on Qatar to release Sheikh Talal and allow him to reunite with his family in Germany," Samos continued. He demanded that until Sheikh Talal is released, he must be allowed immediate access to means of communication with his family, independent medical staff and a lawyer of his own choosing.
Samos also demanded that the Sheikh's legal team must be given access to legal and medical records that the Qatari authorities may have produced during his "arbitrary detention".
This comes at a time when Qatar's monarchy is reeling under accusations that it has been funding the US-designated terrorist organisation Hezbollah.

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