DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Self-employed maintenance worker Lee Bradley Brown, 39, resided in Ilford, east London, and loved to travel, having visited exotic locations such as Indonesia and Thailand.
In April 2011, Brown flew to Dubai at the possible request of an unknown female and checked into the luxurious seven-star hotel, Burj Al Arab.
On April 6, a Nepalese hotel housekeeper entered Brown’s room without permission and not wearing her work uniform. Brown witnessed her attempting to steal from him and called the Dubai police.
The maid claimed she was there to clean his room and did not think he was in the room. According to her and other housekeeping staff, Brown assaulted her and tried to throw her off the balcony. She required minor medical attention for her alleged injuries. She denied stealing and never explained why she was not wearing a uniform or why Brown allegedly assaulted her.
One report states that Brown went to a room the maid was cleaning and attacked her there – one of many inconsistencies in this particular case.
For whatever reason, police did not arrest the maid; they arrested Brown, saying he had become “violently resistant” and tried to jump off the hotel’s balcony. (I see a pattern here, what about you?)
Brown denied the accusations and said he did not assault her; he pushed her out of the hotel room because she was a thief.
Police charged Brown with assault leading to incapacitation, threatening, and insults.
Six days later, Lee Bradley Brown was dead.
Police officials gave different versions of events surrounding Brown’s incarceration and ultimate death. They told prosecutors that Brown injured himself when he banged his head against a wall and attempted to jump from the hotel’s balcony while resisting arrest. He then continued to strike the patrol car’s metal mesh barrier while officers drove him to the police station.
Dubai authorities initially claimed Brown died of natural causes and had traces of hashish in his system. They later said he choked on his vomit, which was ultimately disputed by a UK pathologist, as was the hash.
They said he had started vomiting in his cell but did not complain or seek medical treatment.
At the time of Brown’s arrest, four other British tourists were imprisoned at Bur Dubai Police Station. British embassy officials visited the men on April 14, two days after Brown’s death, to interview them among fears they were in danger of retaliation following reports they had snitched on officers for Brown’s alleged beating.
One of the prisoners telephoned Brown’s sister and told her that Dubai police officers had assaulted Brown and threw him against a concrete wall, causing a head fracture. Brown’s family subsequently contacted the British Embassy in Dubai with concerns about his safety. Dubai police have denied assaulting and torturing Brown.
Some claimed the police denied Brown a lawyer and food and water for six days.
British officials visited Bur Dubai Police Station, but officers told them he did not want to meet with them.
Foreign service officials had visited Brown on April 7 and said he was in good health.
An independent Dubia pathologist examined Brown and found no bruises or signs of assault.
Dubai Attorney General Essam Al Humaidan said the autopsy report showed bruises on Brown’s forehead, nose, under his chin and right eyebrow, and inner right arm. There were a few abrasions on the back of his hands and fingers. The scrapes were four to five days old and sustained during the “violent resistance” or from handcuffs.
On the condition of anonymity, a European man who was in police custody the same time as Brown told a local news outlet how he had begged him for help just days before he died.
“I saw him bleeding. He had bruises on his face, shoulder, and arms when he asked me for help,” the man said. “He kept saying: ‘Please help me, please help me.’”
The man stressed that he had not witnessed the police assaulting Brown.
The man further stated that “Brown was half-naked with both his hands and legs in cuffs. He wore nothing on top … and no shoes … his pants were hanging well below the waist.”
The mystery man saw jail officials serve Brown rice and chicken, but Brown did not eat the meal.
Brown’s family believes Dubai police murdered him while in solitary confinement at Bur Dubai Police Station. They formed the Facebook group, “Justice for Lee Brown Murdered by Cops in Dubai.”
A 2013 British inquest recorded an open verdict into Brown’s death, citing it found no evidence to prove either Brown was murdered or had died of natural causes, as the Dubai police tried to claim in one of their many versions of events.
According to the “Cambridge Dictionary,” an open verdict in the British court system is “a legal decision that records a death but does not state its cause.”
Dr. Benjamin Swift, a British pathologist, found no evidence of vomit in Brown’s airways and discounted violent trauma as a possible cause of death, labeling the bruising as “light.”
In 2015, the British court shut down the original inquest due to lack of injury.
The question remains: how did Brown die?
Brown’s family and the courts are still trying to obtain additional evidence from Dubai authorities, including CCTV footage from the police station. But so far, they have not succeeded.
The British court failed to find three prisoners linked to Brown’s case despite searching police and electoral registers.
Several foreigners have been arrested in the UAE for stupid and downright ridiculous reasons, including calling someone a name on Facebook, holding hands in public, drinking on an airplane, and wearing a Qatar soccer shirt. Police can also arrest foreigners if an Arab accuses them of a crime. Many laws in the UAE are based on Sharia Law.
In July 2018, another tourist, Dr. Ellie Holman from the UK, drank a glass of wine on an Emirates Airline flight to Dubai. When the plane landed, a disagreement over her visa escalated between Holman and an immigration official, who asked if she had been drinking. Holman said she drank a complimentary glass of wine on the plane.
At the time, possession of alcohol was illegal in the UAE; even when consumed, the immigration official told her, and the police arrested her. Last year, the UAE announced it was no longer illegal to consume alcohol due to a significant overhaul of the legal system.
Holman said her jail cell was “filthy and hot,” and she did not sleep for three days because she feared the guards would rape her.
Thousands of dollars later, and with the help of an organization called Detained in Dubai, Holman was released and returned home.
In early 2019, Ali Issa Ahmad, a British-Sudanese security guard, reported to the Dubai police that he had been attacked for wearing a Qatari jersey to a soccer match in the UAE. However, the police accused him of faking his injuries and arrested him.
What Ahmad did not know is that “it is illegal to show sympathy for Qatar in the UAE because the countries are embroiled in a longstanding political dispute over Qatar’s alleged support of terrorism,” The Guardian reported.
Ahmad said that he was “stabbed, punched, and deprived of food and water for days at a time” while incarcerated in Sharjah, a city that forms part of the greater Dubai-Sharjah-Ajman metropolitan area. Ahmad’s ordeal was eerily similar to Brown’s.
Radha Stirling established the organization, Detained in Dubai in 2008. Since then, she has helped thousands of foreigners who were arrested for minor crimes in the UAE.
The group’s mission, per its website, “is to ensure the security of foreign nationals in the Gulf from unjust detention, wrongful prosecution, and all other violations of their human rights; and to promote reforms in the region that will contribute to the stability of the lives and interests of the expats who reside there.”
Stirling told Business Insider in 2019, “People are convicted every day in cases that would be instantly thrown out of a Western court either for lack of evidence, improper procedure, or for just being frivolous.”
True Crime Diva’s Thoughts
Man, this story is why I will never travel to Asia. Talk about some lame-ass reasons to arrest Westerners. As beautiful as Dubai is, I think I’ll pass on ever visiting.
You probably know what I think – the police killed Brown. Intentionally or not, their beatings caused his death. There is no doubt in my mind that they had assaulted him.
If Dubai police have nothing to hide, why haven’t they released CCTV footage to British authorities? Why are there several versions of events surrounding Brown’s death?
Why did FOUR BRITISH prisoners accuse officers of police brutality if they had not assaulted Brown? They did so WHILE IN CUSTODY. That’s pretty brave considering how officers treated Brown.
I am not 100% convinced Swift is on the up-and-up regarding his results. According to him, Brown didn’t choke on his vomit, nor did his body show signs of violence. So, how the hell did he die?
One thing that both the UK and UAE will want to do is maintain good international relations. Plus, Dubai is a HUGE tourist attraction, with roughly 15 million visitors a year, and nothing screams “DON’T COME HERE” quite like police brutality and murder. Dubai officials, and maybe British, too, swept this under the rug so Brown’s death would not scare away tourists, potentially putting a dent in the country’s travel economy.
How did Lee afford the stay at the luxury hotel? Room rental is more than $1,000 per night, and he was a self-employed maintenance worker. How could Brown afford a luxury hotel room? How long was he planning to stay? Did someone else pay for the room? Who is this mystery woman? How did he know her? Why hasn’t she come forward?
You have to wonder if someone set Brown up to be arrested. I have no idea why, though. Nothing about his trip made any sense. His family stated that he respected Muslims and would not have behaved how the police say he did.