According to the British Daily Mail on Friday, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst discharged seven Emirati troops for living lavishly and accepting bribes while in training.
The UK newspaper said that the academy’s major general, Duncan Capps, had dismissed the foreign students, all of whom were citizens of the United Arab Emirates, for “disciplinary problems,” calling the episode a “embarrassing chapter” in the history of the highly regarded institution.
The pupils allegedly tried to pay the academy’s teachers in order to get out of doing their assigned work. Large sums of cash, high-performance automobiles like BMWs, luxury goods like Rolex watches, and exotic vacations were all used as bribes.
As bribes reportedly increased, police had to step in on many instances.
According to the Daily Mail, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), whose president is Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, pays large sums to the academy in an effort to maintain good relations. The UAE has also reportedly built a new accommodation block at the academy, named the Zayed Building, at a cost of £15 million.
Although there are many military schools in the United Kingdom, the Royal Academy at Sandhurst serves as the entry-level officer education and development facility for the British Army. Princes William and Harry, along with other members of the Royal family, are well-known alumni of the institution.
The report comes at a time of tense relations between the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom after a British court ordered Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, to pay his ex-wife Princess Haya bint Al-Hussein £554 million (US$733 million) to cover the costs of raising their two children.
The 2019 case in which the Jordanian princess and her two children fled to the UK from her abusive ex-husband has garnered extensive international media coverage.
However, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) keeps investing billions of dollars into the United Kingdom (UK) in areas including technology, infrastructure, and climate-focused energy transitions.
