Laleh Shahravesh spent 33 days in a Dubai prison for calling her ex's new wife a horse on Facebook (Image: Steve Bainbridge)
Laleh Shahravesh spent 33 days detained in the emirate before becoming the first British citizen to be convicted under the UAE's strict cyber crime laws. The wife had reported her to police for two social media messages posted on Facebook in 2016. She was finally reunited with her 14-year-old daughter Paris in the arrivals hall at Heathrow on Friday, following an international outcry over her treatment. Laleh, 55, from Richmond, Surrey, wept as she admitted: "The day before I was told I was free to go I'd given up hope and was suicidal. "I felt like I was never going to see my daughter again and sent a message to my sister saying 'I can't do this anymore'. I told her 'It's killing me, every day is killing me. I felt so much pain and then I turned off my phone. I could see my whole life flashing before my eyes and I just wanted to die. It was torture to me."
Laleh, a privately educated doctor's daughter, was arrested at Dubai International Airport on March 10 after she and Paris travelled to the emirate so they could grieve at the graveside of Laleh's ex-husband Pedro Correia Dos Santos after he died of a heart attack aged 51, seven days earlier.
At passport control Laleh was hauled away by police, who told her that her ex's new wife had made a legal complaint about two Facebook posts, including one where she had been described as "a horse".
Laleh said: "I couldn't understand what was happening and then a police officer came in and said 'There's a complaint against you - do you know Samah al Hammadi?'
"I just burst into tears. I had been arrested for two Facebook posts made in the UK three years ago.
"I still had no idea about what was going to unfold and the full extent of the trouble I was in. I just thought 'This will all be fine and over by tomorrow'."
Laleh, 55, with daughter Paris, 14 (Image: Steve Bainbridge)
Laleh spent 12 hours at a police station where she was ordered to sign a statement, despite it being in Arabic and her having no understanding of what it said.
She later discovered the translation of the Facebook post bore no relation to what she had written, with a swear word substituted for the word "horse".
The posts, which Laleh wrote after seeing a photo of her ex-husband getting married to his new Tunisian lover Samah al Hammadi, 42, said: "I
