More information on ex-French spy’s escape from Dubai

Herve Jaubert

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
New information has emerged on former French spy Herve Jaubert’s alleged secret escape from Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), which intelNews reported last week. British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph has published an article with details of Jaubert’s escape, including a photograph of the former spy dressed in a black abaya, a head-to-toe burka traditionally worn by Muslim women in the Persian Gulf. Jaubert left Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), France’s foreign intelligence agency, in 1993, to pursue a career in the luxury tourist market, first in Florida and then in Dubai. But less than a year ago, Emirates authorities accused the Frenchman of embezzling nearly $4 million from Dubai World, a company he helped found in the country. Jaubert says he was threatened with torture by overzealous Emirates authorities and decided to escape, despite having been forced to surrender his French passport. He allegedly used his intelligence expertise to check into a series of UAE hotels under assumed identities. On the day of his escape, he wore a wetsuit and a scuba diving set that former intelligence colleagues smuggled to him from France in pieces. He then put on the abaya and walked to a deserted beach, where he used an inflatable rubber dinghy to reach a sailboat located just outside UAE territorial waters. It was reportedly sailed by an unnamed former intelligence colleague of his. The former spies sailed on to India, which Jaubert entered using a new passport supplied to him by French authorities. Emirates officials have dismissed Jaubert’s account of his escape as nonsense and have formally charged him in absentia of embezzlement. But Jaubert, who now lives comfortably in Florida, maintains his innocence and is writing a book titled Escape from Dubai

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