A member of the Qatari royal family, who was allegedly detained in the UAE, was transferred to a hospital shortly after his arrival in Kuwait.
Sources told Al Jazeera that Sheikh Abdullah bin Ali al-Thani was seen in a wheelchair when he arrived in Kuwait from the UAE.
Sheikh Abdullah’s brother, Sheikh Khalid, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that his sibling’s health deteriorated due to exhaustion and the pressure he was exposed to under the Emirati authorities.
Sheikh Khalid added that his brother is now in stable condition and should be leaving the hospital soon.
News agency DPA, too, reported that Sheikh Abdullah was admitted into a military hospital in Kuwait for a check-up following his arrival late Tuesday from the UAE.
The agency report referred to Kuwaiti newspaper Alqabas, which had cited an unnamed security official.
“He was taken to the hospital at his request because he feels a bit exhausted,” the official added without further details.
Kuwaiti online newspaper al-An quoted a Kuwaiti diplomat as saying that “Kuwait welcomes whoever comes to it as long as he is committed to laws that do not allow harming any Gulf or Arab country”.
Kuwait was handling Sheikh Abdullah’s case on a “humanitarian basis”, the diplomat said.
Sheikh Abdullah, who had emerged as a “negotiator” in the dispute between Gulf states in the weeks after Riyadh and Abu Dhabi cut ties with Doha last June, left the UAE with his daughters.
He had posted a video online on Sunday saying he was detained in the UAE and “afraid something could happen to me that will be blamed on Qatar”.
The UAE denied Sheikh Abdullah was being held against his will, with state news agency WAM reporting he was in the country “at his own behest”.
