US calls for freeze on government aid to UAE and international anger grows as the half-brother of Manchester City's owner is seen on video shooting at, setting fire to and running over a helpless Afghan he had accused of cheating him in a business deal

A shocking videotape showing a wealthy prince from the United Arab Emirates brutally torturing a man in the desert has brought a sharp focus on western dealings with the oil-rich Gulf state.

The man at the centre of the 45-minute tape, which shows bloodcurdling scenes of abuse and was smuggled out of the country in secret, is Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a half-brother of the owner of Manchester City FC. Issa is shown attacking a helpless Afghan merchant he accuses of cheating him on a business deal. He fires guns at him, inserts a cattle prod in his anus, sets fire to his testicles and runs him over.

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At one point, Issa tells the cameraman to get a close-up. "Get closer. Get closer. Get closer. Let his suffering show," the sheikh says.

Later the sheikh beats the man with a wooden plank with a nail protruding from it, and pours salt in the bloody wounds left by his blows. He also inserts an electric cattle prod in the man's anus and turns it on, and pours lighter fluid over the man's testicles, which he then sets alight. Finally, the man is held down in the sand and a Mercedes is driven over him. The sound of bones breaking can be clearly heard.

The victim, an Afghan grain merchant called Mohammed Shah Poor, apparently survived the experience, because the government later justified taking no action against the sheikh by saying the matter had been settled privately between the two men and each had agreed not to press charges against the other...

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