Lebanese doctor Richard Kharrat was arrested in Abu Dhabi for tweets considered derogatory towards the UAE. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — Richard Kharrat, a Lebanese gynecologist who had been in custody for a month in Abu Dhabi over tweets deemed offensive to Emiratis, was released on Thursday, his lawyer Joëlle Chakar told L’Orient Today.
Here’s what we know:
• Chakar said that the charges have been dropped and that Kharrat has two days to return to Lebanon.
• Between 2017 and 2020, Kharrat published tweets considered derogatory towards the UAE. People close to the specialist were astonished when the arrest was announced that such old comments had suddenly reached the Emirati authorities at a time when Kharrat was in this country. They referred to an Emirati internet user who had denounced the doctor, sending the following message on Twitter to the UAE’s deputy attorney general, Hamad Al Shamsi: “@RichardKharrat mocked the symbols of the state. He is also accused of causing the death of journalist Nicole Hajal's two premature babies in Lebanon at the time of their birth. He is currently in Abu Dhabi to take a test to be recruited to the Aesthetic (medical) center.”
• The gynecologist is the subject of a complaint in Lebanon brought by Hajal. Many internet users speculated that she and one of her friends, Dima Sadek, a journalist who works for the MTV channel, were behind the doctor’s misadventure in the UAE. These accusations had been firmly refuted by the two women, the first in a statement issued by her lawyer, Carole Racy, and the second, in a statement to L'Orient-Le Jour, three days after the doctor’s arrest.
• The arrest attracted attention in Lebanon, including the mobilization of General Security director Abbas Ibrahim, while President Michel Aoun contacted Foreign Affairs Minister Abdallah Bou Habib asking him to follow up with the concerned Emirati authorities.