DETROIT, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- An Arab-American leader who counted himself an economic hostage in Qatar in the Persian Gulf said he was freed Monday and will return to Detroit and his family.
Businessman Nasser Beydoun, 47, a former head of the Dearborn-based American Arab Chamber of Commerce, went to Qatar 2007 to become chief executive officer of the Wataniya Restaurants chain.
When the global financial crisis two years later caused the Qatar firm to go under, Beydoun was denied an exit visa despite a storm of civil litigation, the newspaper said.
In Qatar and some other gulf nations, international travel for foreign workers can be restricted in cases of business or legal disputes even if no crimes are proven or charged.
Michigan's U.S. senators, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, and five Michigan congressmen wrote letters to the U.S. and Qatari embassies urging his release.
"It feels great" to be free, Beydoun told the Free Press from Lebanon, where he was staying with relatives preparing to return Friday to Detroit and his wife and three children.
"The kids won't be happy until he's here, they won't believe it until they see him," his wife Maysa said.
Beydoun said he wants to bring attention to the "human injustice" of holding foreign workers captive inside Qatar, which portrays itself as a moderate, modern Arab nation.
The Qatar government, he said, "must treat foreign laborers with more respect."
