 "British academic Matthew Hedges")
The United Arab Emirates on Monday pardoned a British academic jailed for life on spying charges, granting his family's request for clemency minutes after showing a video of him purportedly confessing to being a member of UK intelligence agency MI6.
The UAE president issued the pardon as part of a mass clemency of more than 700 prisoners to mark the country's National Day, according to a statement carried by state news agency WAM.
The pardon was effective immediately and Matthew Hedges, a 31-year-old doctoral student at Durham University held for more than six months, will be allowed to leave the country "once
