An Ally Held Me as a Spy—And the West Is Complicit

My nightmare started at the Dubai airport.

I checked in and, after a quick coffee, my mother, who was living in Dubai at the time, walked me to border control to say goodbye. It was May 2018, and I had spent the past two weeks staying with her as I carried out research for my doctoral thesis. We exchanged a hug, and I waited in a queue before handing over my passport for immigration checks. Then, suddenly, as my travel documents were being examined, about a dozen security officers swarmed around me and said I was being detained.

What ensued was a seven-month ordeal, one in which I—a British academic—was kept in solitary confinement by the intelligence service of a friendly government. One in which basic demands, such as access to a lawyer, were denied. And one in which my wife and, eventually,