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From Times Online

January 13, 2010

Barack Obama criticised for nuclear deal with UAE

Tim Reid in Washington

A senior Democratic congressman has demanded that President Obama delay a nuclear deal with the United Arab Emirates after a member of its Royal Family was acquitted despite a videotape showing him subjecting another man to torture.

Jim McGovern, who heads the US House of Representatives Human Rights Committee, expressed outrage over the not guilty verdict and decried Washington’s decision to press ahead with the nuclear deal despite what he called a laughable court ruling.

But the Obama Administration showed little sign it was prepared to risk its relationship with a key regional ally, gently rebuking the UAE but going no farther. P. J. Crowley, a State Department spokesman, said the decision would not affect the $41billion (£25billion) nuclear deal, a move that has dismayed human rights groups.

The case of Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, one of 22 royal brothers of the UAE President and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince, drew international condemnation when the 45-minute videotape was made public in May last year.

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In the film Sheikh Issa can be seen repeatedly beating a man with a cattle prod and a nailed board, burning his genitals and driving his Mercedes over him several times. At the time Mr McGovern said that it was “one of the most horrific things I have ever seen”.

Under US pressure the UAE — a close American ally and the world’s third-largest oil exporter — eventually agreed to put Sheikh Issa on trial.

Sheikh Issa was exonerated on Sunday of charges including rape and endangering a life. The judge said that he agreed with Sheikh Issa’s defence: that at the time of the torture he had been not responsible for his actions because he had been impaired by a combination of drugs, including medicines for heart and back conditions.

“It’s an abomination, it’s an awful verdict, it’s a travesty of justice,” Mr McGovern told The Times. “I have seen the tape. He was very much under control. This whole cockamamie excuse that he was under the influence of drugs — the UAE does not take human rights seriously.

“If human rights matter, if it’s part of our foreign policy, we should at least slow this nuclear deal down,” Mr McGovern said. “Otherwise this guy will have got away with it and will continue to get away with it. This sheikh is a torturer and deserves to be behind bars.”

Yet Mr McGovern’s concerns about human rights appear to have been trumped in Washington by the Obama Administration’s focus on the geopolitical importance of the UAE, a key ally in a region where the US has many adversaries.

Under the deal the UAE will buy fuel and materials for its civilian nuclear power plants from the US.

In return the UAE pledges to abide by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and not to reprocess its spent nuclear fue