The United Arab Emirates is telling citizens to avoid wearing national dress when traveling abroad after a Muslim man, who was wrongfully accused of supporting ISIS, was arrested in Avon last week.
According to Reuters, a message on a Foreign Ministry Twitter account said Saturday: "For citizens traveling outside the country, and in order to ensure their safety, we point out not to wear formal dress while traveling, especially in public places."
This comes after a clerk at the Fairfield Inn & Suites on Colorado Avenue had her sister call 911 claiming a man dressed in traditional Muslim clothing was on the phone pledging allegiance to ISIS. Police quickly realized that did not happen and released the man from his handcuffs. He fainted shortly afterward. That man was later identified as Ahmed Almenhali of The United Arab Emirates.
Body camera video showed officers handcuffing and searching Almenhali. He was hospitalized with minor injuries.
On Saturday, Avon’s top city officials told Almenhali they were sorry.
“No one from the police department (wanted) to disrespect you,” Police Chief Richard Bosley told Almenhali. “That was not the intent of any of our officers. It is a very regrettable circumstance that occurred for you. You should not have been put in that situation like you were.”
“There were some false accusations made against you,” Mayor Brian Jensen said. “And those are regrettable. I hope…the person that made those can maybe learn from those.”
On Sunday, Avon Mayor Bryan Jensen released the following statement:
The City of Avon, and the Avon Police Department, apologize to Ahmed Al Menhali for the regrettable incident that took place last week in our community. Based on the information our officers had when they answered the 911 call, they took the steps that are part of our police department's standard response protocol. As soon as the facts became clear, our officers apologized to Mr. Al Menhali and released him.
This was a very unfortunate incident and does not reflect our community. Avon is proud to welcome visitors from the United Arab Emirates and other countries, who regularly come to Northern Ohio for tourism, business, medical care or education.
We are reviewing all of the circumstances surrounding this incident to determine if the individual who placed this call could face charges and we are reviewing the response provided by our offices to determine if we need to make any changes to our 911 protocol.
