Michelle Palmer arrived in court tired, shaky but precisely on time.
Innocuously dressed in a conservative black trouser suit and modest
green-printed scarf, she sank into an empty bench on the “ladies-only” side
of Chamber No17 of Dubai's Court of First Instance. She barely glanced to
the other side of the courtroom, where half a dozen Fleet Street journalists
craned to catch her eye and record her every move.
They were there to record the verdict in a case that all summer has dominated
headlines in what has been billed as a sensational example of what happens
when Western values clash with this conservative Gulf emirate's laws. Would
the judge sentence Palmer and Vince Acors to a six-year prison term for
allegedly having drunken sex on a Dubai beach?
The truth, as it turned out, was that everybody would have to wait another
week to find out. The couple were in court simply to find out the date for
their trial. The verdict was just a rumour, like so much else surrounding
this case.
“They've all flown out here for nothing,” Palmer whispered to me under her
breath, with a slight roll of her eyes.
Before her arrest on July 5, Palmer was a successful associate manager for
ITP, a Middle Eastern publishing house. By all accounts she loved her job,
and loved her life in Dubai, with its year-round sunshine, sandy beaches and
tax-free living. Her friends describe her as warm and carefree with a sharp
wit. But on Tuesday she told another story: “I have lost everything there is
to lose,” she said, sitting in the immaculate, marble courthouse where her
fate will ultimately be decided.
Since her arrest, she says she has been treated like a pariah. She was sacked
from her job. Some of the co-workers whom she once considered friends have
spoken of her disparagingly in the press, likening her to a pathetic
incarnation of Bridget Jones.
Here in Dubai, public opinion has come down sharply against her: expatriates
and Emiratis alike believe that she should have respected local laws. But
all of that, Palmer indicated yesterday, is based on the false assumption
that she is guilty. “Ninety per cent of what has been reported is untrue,”
she told me in court yesterday.
The rumours are indeed rife: the British press have reported that Palmer threw
a Jimmy Choo shoe at the policeman who arrested her - one of the most
grievous insults you can inflict on an Arab man. Another report claimed that
she had married Acors in jail in an effort to have their sentences reduced.
Yet another said Palmer hurled an anti-Islamic slur at the policeman who
arrested her, and had ignored a warning from him to stop what she and Acors
were doing on that beach.
As the only female foreign reporter in court, I sat in front of Palmer through
yesterday's proceedings. She is forbidden from discussing any details of her
case with the press - something that clearly frustrates her. So when a
friend of hers arrived, holding her hand for moral support, a note was
passed. “Michelle wanted you to have this, but it can only be credited to a
close friend,” she said.
Written in pencil, on two pages of small notebook paper, and explicitly
sourced to a “close friend”, the letter offers a rare, first-hand glimpse of
Palmer's side of the story. The note forcefully declares her innocence, and
dismisses many of the allegations against her as wildly exaggerated.
It also reveals a woman driven to the edge of her sanity, pleading for help
and desperate to return home: “She has been in hospital from panic attacks,
on antidepressants and stayed in hiding for seven weeks. She's a paranoid,
scared wreck due to false allegations printed and she's lost the job she
loves,” the note says. Regardless of what the judge decides next week, she
fears that her fate has already been sealed: “This certainly has all been
trial by media,” the note says.
Palmer claims she has been slandered and humiliated by false press reports
detailing her alleged encounter with Acors, who also appeared in court
yesterday. Both remain free on bail, but their lives are on hold. They are
barred from leaving the country until the verdict.
Palmer has previously denied prosecutors' accusations that the couple were
having sex on the beach, saying in an earlier court appearance they were
only hugging and kissing. However, the note goes further, saying there was
never “any slur on Islam”, “any abuse/attack/hitting with shoe” nor was
there “any caution” given before her arrest.
She says there is no DNA evidence, as has been widely reported, to prove that
the couple had intercourse. The note also claims that Acors never “admitted
to sex. He didn't”. Prosecutors in Dubai are standing by their case, which
is expected to conclude after the policeman who arrested the couple gives
evidence next week.
One source familiar with the case says: “The result will have far-reaching
effects, because it has become a symbol of the basic contradiction of life
here.” Under the rule of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, Dubai has
embarked on an ambitious and successful quest to become the Middle East's
centre for trade and tourism: many Westerners, including the Beckhams, have
invested in property. But some of its laws, rooted in Sharia and tribal
life, are clearly on a collision course with the values of some of the very
people it seeks to attract. Public decency laws forbid everything from
kissing in public to cross-dressing. There is zero tolerance for drugs or
pornography. Homosexuality is banned. So is sex outside marriage.
For years, expats have found ways around these laws. Unmarried couples who
live together falsify marriage certificates when needed. Those without an
alcohol licence purchase liquor through friends. But the era of authorities
turning a blind eye to these violations appears to be coming to an end.
With expats now accounting for more than 80 per cent of the population, there
is an emerging effort on the part of the ruling authorities to assert
“Emirati values”. In a recent crackdown by Dubai's decency police, hundreds
of people were arrested over the summer on charges ranging from
cross-dressing to topless sunbathing, all conducted under the motto: “Our
social values are precious...let's protect them.” Dubai's most popular
beaches, shopping malls and boozy Friday brunches - one-time havens for
expat excess - have become the target of undercover police patrols. The
country's stance on drugs has also hardened. In the past 12 months, around
65 British nationals have been arrested in the UAE for drugs offences.
One of those was Raymond Bingham, Radio One's DJ Grooverider, who was arrested
after police found marijuana in his luggage when he arrived at the airport
to play a club last November. He is serving a four-year sentence in Dubai's
central jail.
But Dubai's courts have also shown signs of flexibility, an acknowledgement
that as the number of Westerners living here grows, so does their clout.
Last year the mother of a teenage French boy who was raped in Dubai won a
hard-fought victory when two Emiratis were sentenced to 15 years in jail for
kidnapping and sexually assaulting her son, Alexandre.
Before the woman took her case public, the police accused Alexandre of past
homosexual behaviour and inventing the assault to cover it up, both criminal
offences. The tension and publicity around Alexandre's case appeared to work
in his favour, prompting the authorities to convict the rapists rather than
the victim.
But Palmer is all too aware that, in her case, there is no such sympathy. On
Tuesday, before the court adjourned I asked her if she believed she would
ultimately win freedom. She said she wanted the verdict as soon as possible:
“I honestly want this all to be over so I can just go home.” And she
acknowledged she might not be able to accomplish that alone.
The note from her friend concludes with a simple plea for the couple: “They
need help!”
High hopes: the Dubai story
by Tom Whipple
Last April a construction worker, almost certainly an expatriate, laid a
girder on the 147th floor of the Burj Dubai Tower. High above the city's
30,000 cranes - at one point a quarter of the world's supply - his view
would have stretched from an indoor ski slope in the desert to an underwater
hotel by the coast. Looking beyond, he could see across to the largest land
reclamation project in the world, a palm-shaped island stretching into the
Gulf.
Still 200 metres short of completion, his tower had just become the tallest
structure in the world. But on wages of £5 a day, he had no time to admire
the view.
If there is any doubt what Dubai - and indeed the United Arab Emirates, of
which Dubai is a constituent part - is about, then the Government website
makes it clear. Its section on the region's history makes no mention of
cultural or scientific achievements. It ignores cuisine, music and religion.
Instead, it concentrates on logistics: shipping and oil, canals and free
trade. In other words, on money. “Dubai's formula for development is
evident,” it says. “Visionary leadership, high-quality infrastructure, an
expatriate-friendly environment, zero tax on personal and corporate income
and low import duties. The problem for its rulers is that their economic
success requires the services of people who are used to not just the wealth,
but also the freedom, of the West.
The UAE was founded in 1971, when the British withdrew from the Gulf. Seven
tribal leaders in coastal towns joined together to form a loose federation,
each retaining near-absolute power over their territory. Although they are
the most liberal regime on the Arabian peninsula, their Sharia legal system
forbids sex outside marriage and still occasionally sentences women
adulterers to death by stoning. Last year at least one person was sentenced
to be flogged.
For Westerners, the UAE has resorted to untidy compromises: alcohol is largely
restricted to hotels, but in cities full of hotels that is scant impediment.
Last year the New York Times listed Dubai as a top party destination - even
reporting on plans for a branch of Hooters, the US restaurant chain based
around waitresses in tight tops. This is Disneyland Dubai: a tax-free city
with a surreally hedonistic lifestyle.
But for many expats there is yet another side to the city. The UAE is a nation
built on foreigners, and most are not Westerners. They are workers from
India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, living in great slums beneath the gleaming
towers. The money they send back home forms a significant part of the
economy of the Indian subcontinent: and without them, the world's largest
building site would stop working tomorrow.
