Andre stuck in prison on shameful technicality
Detained in Dubai CEO Radha Stirling’s remarks on Andre Gauthier verdict today:
“At the hearing today for Andre Gauthier, the judge ruled on 11 cases which had been appealed by Andre’s lawyers, and found him ‘not guilty’. However, the court claimed that 62 cases remain that were not appealed by Andre’s former lawyer within the allowed time period; so the previous judgments in these cases still stand. This is a gross miscarriage of justice. If Andre is now the victim of his attorney’s incompetence, this cannot be accepted as a reason to retain the lower court judgment. Clearly, upon appeal in the 11 cases, which are identical to all the others, the court found Andre ‘not guilty’. This ruling should be applied to the remaining cases, and the previous judgments should be overturned. There is no reason whatsoever for only 11 out of 73 cases to be appealed; either this is due to incompetence by Andre’s former attorney, or a failure of the court clerk’s office in recording the submission of the appeals; unless the appeals were deliberately ignored.
"We urge the Canadian government to immediately intervene to expedite Andre’s release. He has been exonerated in all 11 cases heard by the judge today, and the result would have been the same in the remaining cases, had the appeals process been followed properly. It is inexcusable to delay Andre’s release on a technical issue such as this. It has already been half a decade fighting in the arbitrary, chaotic Dubai legal system. Both the Canadian and UAE governments need to urgently step in and resolve this matter.”