Washington DC, USA - FEBRUARY 10 2021: President Joe Biden delivers remarks to Department of Defense personnel, with Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III
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Son of American Prisoner in Dubai Begs Biden for Help

The son of an American held in a Dubai prison for 15 years claims the charges are false and says his father – who is now dying – has been “abandoned” by the US. He is calling on Biden to intervene, but will the president step in?

Son says his father will die in weeks if US does not intervene

Zack Shahin, 58, an American businessman, is imprisoned at Al-Awir prison in Dubai, where he has served 15 years so far of a 53-year sentence. His family says he was illegally detained on false and politically motivated charges.

Zach’s family says their father could die within weeks. He is battling coronary disease, an infection in his lungs, and a deadly pseudomonas infection he contracted from operating equipment that wasn’t sterile, leading to rotting flesh and weeping sores. His son says he speaks to his father at least once a day, and it is agonizing to hear him suffering so much, the Daily Mail reported.

“I just want to try and help my dad to get the care he needs, otherwise he will die,” Ramy Shahin, 30, said.

His son told Fox that the State Department has ignored their pleas to negotiate a release.

“I feel like the fact that the United Arab Emirates helped broker the deal for Griner’s release was kind of a slap in the face to my family and I,” Ramy said during an interview, the New York Post reported. “And they gave my father’s case… not an ounce of respect.”

“He’s an American citizen that’s been abandoned by the Biden administration as well as the State Department,” Ramy continued. “Nobody has answered our plea for help, and then seeing Brittney Griner get all the attention…maybe we’re not famous enough. We’re just an ordinary American family, and they completely ignored us.”

American receives 53-year prison sentence in Dubai, family says charges are false and politically motivated

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) imprisoned Shahin on charges of fraud, embezzlement, and other financial crimes, for which he has been imprisoned for 15 years thus far on a 53-year sentence, the Daily Mail reported.

Zach is a Lebanese native who moved to Texas when he was five. He worked as a Pepsi truck driver in Houston and eventually worked his way up to become an executive at the company, Fox reported.

In 2004, the UAE’s Minister of Finance and chairman of the Dubai Islamic Bank, Mohammed Khalfan bin Kharbash, recruited Zach and made him CEO of a real estate development firm that the bank owned, Deyaar.

In 2006, when Dubai’s ruler died, political fallout engulfed bin Kharbash, and Zach resigned from Deyaar in early March 2008.

Zach was called to an auditing meeting in late March 2008 where he was abducted by state security, placed in solitary confinement for seventeen days, then arrested on charges of fraud, embezzlement, and other financial crimes – all of which his family says are false and politically motivated.