Rude gesture: IT expert Jamil Mukadam
A British tourist who was detained in Dubai for five weeks for making a rude hand gesture claims he could now lose his job – because the UAE secretly placed him on an Interpol watch list.
Jamil Mukadam, 23, was arrested at Dubai airport after allegedly flicking his middle finger at a motorist who was tailgating him.
The IT expert, from Leicester, was released in October and returned to his UK Government job a few days later.
But he says he has been told by his bosses that the UAE authorities had placed him on an Interpol watch list.
The move would normally warrant dismissal from his security sensitive job – Mr Mukadam has previously claimed to work at Number 10.
Instead he has been suspended by his department to allow him time to remove his name from the list.
Mr Mukadam said: ‘If I had been anyone else, I’d never have known I was on Interpol’s watch list.
‘It’s only because I work for the Government that I was able to be informed.
‘God knows why the UAE wanted to list me with Interpol, but it can’t have been for any pleasant reason.’
Mr Mukadam was driving a hire car in the city when the alleged incident happened.
He told the Sun that he had made the rude gesture to a driver who tailgated him and started flashing his lights, and ‘thought nothing more of it’.
He told the newspaper: ‘It’s the kind of thing that happens in England all the time. You don’t go to jail for it.
Mr Mukadam said he was going to the airport with his wife when someone started tailgating him prompting him to flick his finger at the other motorist who reported it to police
When Mr Mukadam returned to Dubai in September , he was arrested at passport control
‘When I came back last week for a holiday with my wife I went through passport control in Dubai and when they took a scan it started beeping loudly.
‘Within seconds I was surrounded by police and taken off to jail.’
Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai, a UAE justice group, said that abuse of Interpol has been a long standing tactic of the UAE, one of Interpol’s largest voluntary cash contributors.
He said: ‘We have alerted the UAE government of the existence of the Interpol notice and requested they investigate.
‘So far, we have not received a response. Interpol allow themselves at least nine months to review notices and Jamil stands to permanently lose his employment if it is not resolved within three months.’
Any kind of rude gesture is a jailable offence in Dubai, including middle finger emojis.