The Foreign Office has issued a warning on medication to the 650,000 British tourists who travel to the United Arab Emirates each year after a woman imprisoned in the Gulf state for taking painkillers escaped a four-year jail sentence yesterday.
A court in Dubai acquitted Tracy Wilkinson, an osteopath, two months after she was found to have traces of the painkiller codeine and the sedative Temazepam in her urine when she was detained at the airport.
Mrs Wilkinson, 44, spent eight weeks in prison on remand but was released last week. Her lawyers return to court today to see whether prosecutors will appeal against the verdict. Codeine is illegal in the UAE, where it is considered to be a mind-altering drug, without proof it was obtained on prescription.
A Foreign Office spokesman said advice to travellers had been changed since Mrs Wilkinson's arrest. It now reads: "If you are taking medication prescribed or obtained in the UK for use in the UAE, and you have any doubts as to whether it is approved for use, you should consult the UAE authorities."
But Stephen Jakobi of the organisation Fair Trials Abroad said he was raising the issue through the European parliament "so that the UAE knows it will not get much of a tourist trade if this sort of thing is ever repeated".
Other countries also appeared to have medical restrictions that were little known to travellers.
Mrs Wilkinson, of Balcombe, West Sussex, was arrested over "irregularities" in her passport. Prosecutors claimed she had to be removed from a flight because she was in an "agitated state".
The authorities said her behaviour at the airport prompted them to conduct a urine test. Her doctor in the UK had prescribed medicine for back pain and sent confirmatory evidence to the court.
Mrs Wilkinson was also given medication by a police doctor at the airport to calm her. Her lawyers believe traces of those drugs may also have shown up in the urine test.
Robin Wilkinson, 50, her former husband, has flown out to support her. "She is happy to have been acquitted but still a little worried because she still does not have her passport and can't come home," he said.
Nicholas Soames, Mrs Wilkinson's MP, said: "It is quite clear that she should be perfectly entitled to have these pills for backache. I sent her doctor's letter to the Foreign Office and the UAE embassy. It is an unfortunate and unhappy state of affairs and it was very wrong that she should have been charged in this way."
