Approximately 18 miles from Dubai’s shiny centre lies a notorious prison that has been described as ‘hell on earth.’
The complex, where violence and rape are commonplace and inmates are tortured with electric shocks, is where Irish crime boss Daniel Kinahan is being held after his arrest on Wednesday.
Al Awir Central, nicknamed Dubai’s Alcatraz, is notorious for its brutal conditions, with inmates tortured for confessions and suffering from horrific illnesses.
Dangerous criminals, including murderers and terrorists, are detained in unsanitary and overcrowded cells alongside expats, including British citizens, many who are held without formal charges or coerced into making confessions.
Kinahan, hunted by the authorities for years, was arrested in Dubai after a warrant issued by an Irish court in relation to directing an organised crime gang.
He is now facing extradition to Ireland, but the process could take at least three months, a former senior Garda officer warned, leaving the mob boss waiting in conditions vastly different from his luxury lifestyle in Dubai.
Kinahan has now traded his sprawling UAE villa for what inmates have described as a ‘cage,’ where up to 15 men share a single room at a time, sleeping on bunk beds and the floor.
Expats who have previously languished in the Emirati hellhole have described horrific experiences, including Brit Albert Douglas, who was imprisoned in 2021 and spent four years in the UAE’s notorious detention centres.
A policeman enters Dubai’s Al Awir central prison in the United Arab Emirates
Kinahan, hunted by the authorities for years, was arrested in Dubai after a warrant issued by an Irish court in relation to directing an organised crime gang
Prisoners in the Al Awir jail must have a shaved head at all times, starting when they enter and they are punished if their hair gets long (Pictured: Inmates read amid the COVID-19 pandemic, at the library of Dubai’s Al Awir central prison)
Amongst these was Al Awir, where he spent most of his sentence before his release in December 2025.
During his time there, Douglas claims he was tortured by guards, deprived of food, water and medical treatment, and witnessed the rape and suicides of fellow inmates.
‘You’re locked up for 23 to 24 hours a day. More often than not it’s 24 hours… and there are no facilities that really exist, they have a library, you have to wait three months to go,’ he told the Daily Mail.
‘They have a gym. I think I went twice in four years… There’s nothing to look forward to, the food is inedible, every meal comes with a side order of cockroaches.’
Sleep, he said, was the only way to survive.
Karl Williams, a Brit who was jailed in Dubai’s ‘Alcatraz’ for a year in 2012, revealed in his memoir how he saw men being stabbed to death, had electric shocks administered to his testicles and feared corrupt police would gang rape him.
He described seeing packs of guards stood by without intervening as inmates attacked each other: ‘I saw men get stabbed in the neck and others sliced down their faces. Blood splattered every surface as prisoner after prisoner was sliced.’
He also said the prison was run by Russian gangsters, who would use HIV-positive inmates to rape and infect others as a means of punishment.
Williams, along with fellow Brits Grant Cameron and Suneet Jeerh said they were given electric shocks and had guns held to their heads during their time in al-Awir.
‘They pulled down my trousers, spread my legs and started to electrocute my testicles,’ Williams wrote.
‘It was unbelievably painful. I was so scared. I started to believe that I was going to die in that room.’
Prisoners in the Al Awir jail must have a shaved head at all times, starting when they enter and they are punished if their hair gets long, while women reportedly have to wear head coverings.
Punishments include bans on TV and calls to home, with phone access severely limited regardless. Prisoners are rarely allowed visitors.
Letters and parcels sent to inmates are checked by the prison and carry the risk of being censored, including parts of magazines and books.
While many of the most high-profile accounts of the grim conditions have come from men in recent years, the situation faced by women is feared to be even more brutal.
Inmate Dinchi Lar said that in her jail there were a minimum of 10 people for three bunk beds, meaning she was forced to sleep on the floor.
‘There’s nothing like personal space… you are sleeping and somebody is in your face. You’re literally sleeping on top of another person,’ she told ITV.
Over three months Lar said she was only able to step outside and ‘see the sun’ for a 15-minute period.
Karl Williams claims he saw men torn apart by knife-wielding inmates, while others were forcibly infected with HIV during his time in the hellish Dubai prison. Here he is pictured in his cell during the horror ordeal
A doctor shows a hallway at the medical centre of Dubai’s Al Awir central prison
Illness is made worse by freezing temperatures and lack of nutrition, with pictures showing the grim food served to inmates (Pictured: A meal at Al Awir prison)
Meanwhile, British former prisoner Zara-Jayne Moisey, who was locked up after reporting her own rape, recalled the horrific conditions she was forced to live in at the filthy Al Barsha prison.
‘It was the most frightening experience of my life, absolute torture, and all because I went to the police about what happened in the hotel room,’ she told The Sun.
‘I will never forget the jail, it’s the worst place I have ever been.
‘They kept the lights off in the day so we’d be eating in pitch blackness. Then they turned them on at night so no one could sleep.’
Inmates have described both baking heat and freezing temperatures with ‘extreme’ air conditioning, with one saying: ‘If being in prison doesn’t break you, the temperature inside the prison will.’
Illness is also rife in the prisons, with one British former inmate suffering from tuberculosis which he contracted while in there.
Human rights campaigners say some with chronic health conditions were denied adequate medical care.
A report in 2019 found that HIV patients in Al Awir were refused life-saving treatment.
The cells were gripped by Covid during the pandemic as well, with cramped conditions making it impossible to social distance.
Illness is made worse by freezing temperatures and lack of nutrition, with pictures showing the grim food served to inmates.
Lar said inmates in her jail were not seen by a doctor unless they were ‘at the point of death’.
A British football coach who was jailed in Dubai after four bottles of vape liquid containing cannabis oil were found in his car also claims to have witnessed tortures and said prisoners were left to die from illnesses.
Relatives of inmates at Al Awir have also claimed that prisoners have been forced to sign documents in Arabic at gunpoint.
Last December, 24-year-old British law student Mia O’Brian was released from Al Awir after having initially been given a life sentence for being caught with 50g of cocaine. The young woman was released thanks to a royal pardon.
Sentences for drug trafficking in the UAE can include the death penalty, and possession of even the smallest amount of illegal drugs, including cannabis, can lead to a minimum 3-month prison term or a fine of between 20,000 UAE dirham (£4,000) and 100,000 UAE dirham (£20,000).
Before her release, her mother described how O’Brian was living in a constant state of fear, adding that the 24-year-old had witnessed several fights and was forced to sleep on a mattress on the floor.
She told the Daily Mail: ”The prison conditions are horrendous. There are no staff really and she has to bang on a big door if she needs anything.’
‘She is absolutely devastated by what has happened. Mia is being really strong but I know she is going through a living hell.’
And a British teen was jailed in Dubai for having sex with a fellow UK tourist he met on holiday last year.
Marcus Fakana, 19, was arrested and imprisoned last year over a consensual holiday relationship with another British tourist who was just a few months younger than himself – a fact he was not aware of at the time.
Emirati Director General of punitive and correctional institutions Brigadier Ali al-Shamali, gestures towards an inmate during a virtual visit at Dubai’s Al Awir central prison
Kinahan (R) was paid more than $4million working as a dealmaker for Tyson Fury (L)
The girl was one month away from turning 18, but sex with anyone under the age of 18 is an offence in the Gulf state. They met when both their families were staying at a luxury hotel.
The girl’s mother reported Marcus – who was aged 18 at the time – to the UAE authorities after seeing messages between the two when she had returned to the UK.
His case drew widespread attention and outrage, highlighting the UAE’s harsh laws that criminalise personal relationships and critics say disproportionately target foreign nationals.
He was released in July and returned to the UK after receiving a royal pardon from Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
Now, ever since the Israeli-US war on Iran broke out, expats in the UAE are being increasingly targeted, amid warnings from the authorities that they face fines or even imprisonment for sharing footage from ‘unknown’ sources related to the conflict.
So far, over 20 people – including a 60-year-old British tourist – have reportedly been charged in relation to sharing content related to Iranian attacks.
The UAE warned citizens and visitors against photographing, filming, publishing, or circulating images and videos of incident sites or damage resulting from the Iranian attacks, with violations carrying a minimum of one year in prison and fines starting at £20,000.
But those sentences rise to two years and £40,000 in cases deemed to incite panic or harm national security.
The expats are being chucked into UAE prisons to face abysmal conditions, with one detainee alleging in a smuggled note that he and 15 others were beaten by police.
Kinahan has been living in Dubai since 2016, when he moved from the Costa del Sol in Spain following the murder of David Byrne in the infamous Regency Hotel attack that sparked a bloody war with the rival Hutch Gang.
Since moving to Dubai with his wife, Caoimhe Robinson, Kinahan had established a property portfolio – including a sprawling villa in the UAE worth millions.
Alongside his brother he had also set up a number of companies in the food, clothing and textiles industries, while at the same time making millions as a boxing promoter. He was paid more than $4million working as a dealmaker for Tyson Fury.
Kinahan could now face spending the rest of his life behind bars for his alleged role in the gang.