London: An Indian-origin British man allegedly tortured along with two other British friends in a Dubai jail has described the experience as "disgusting" and "out of this world".
Suneet Jeerh likened the prison experience to `Groundhog Day` the repetition of the same day again and again in one of the first interviews by the trio since their return to London last month.
"It was just out of this world, disgusting the way they treated us," the 26-year-old ITV television. "It was like Groundhog Day in jail, there was a constant threat of violence," he said.
Jeerh and his friends, Grant Cameron and Karl Williams, claim they were repeatedly beaten and abused after being arrested and jailed for four years on drugs charges while on holiday in Dubai last year.
They were pardoned under a United Arab Emirates (UAE) amnesty last month and have now been reunited with their families in Britain.
Still traumatised by their ordeal, they are planning to set up a charity to help the prisoners left behind. Cameron, who ignored his girlfriend`s warning that the trip would be trouble, told the `Evening Standard`: "Going there was the worst mistake of my life. There are people in those prisons who aren`t as lucky as us.
They have no family to fight for them, no cash to get legal assistance. Now we have survived, we feel that it is our duty to fight for them.
"The men said had it not been for their families, help from charities Reprieve and Prisoners Abroad, and British Prime Minister David Cameron ? who campaigned for their release on a visit to the UAE in May they would still be "rotting in a cell".
The trio described Dubai as "crazy" in its approach to law and order and claim they were given rotting food and were forced to endure filthy conditions during their imprisonment.
Their ordeal began when Cameron and Williams, both from Wanstead in north-east London, went on holiday to visit Jeerh, from Ilford in east London, who had moved to Dubai a month earlier to work in marketing.
They hired a car but say they found a bag in the car which turned out to be synthetic cannabis known as spice. They said they reported it to the man who rented them the car who convinced them it was tobacco.
They were then arrested, driven out into the desert and allegedly beaten. Williams also claims police used electric shock torture on his testicles.
They said they only survived in prison because Russian gangsters took them under their wing.
PTI
