American national returns home after UAE incarceration ordeal

Twenty-nine-year-old Shezanne Cassim of Woodbury, Minn., told reporters Thursday that he did nothing wrong and that there was nothing illegal about the video, which satirized youth culture in Dubai.

Cassim and seven others were convicted in December of defaming the UAE image abroad under a 2012 cybercrimes law.

Arrested in April and later sentenced to one year in prison, Cassim was reportedly given credit for time served and good behaviour.

Cassim, a US citizen who moved to Dubai for work in 2006, participated in a 19-minute video, entitled Satwa Combat School, which was posted on YouTube in October 2012.

Cassim says he was "tried in a textbook kangaroo court" and convicted "without any evidence." He says his ordeal shows the UEA is "scared of democracy."

Cassim was in custody in the UAE for nine months in connection with the video. He was arrested in April and had been held at a maximum security prison in Abu Dhabi since June.

An airplane carrying Cassim home landed Thursday afternoon at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

"You can imagine the torture they've been under for nine months, not knowing if they were going to see him, when they were going to see him," Susan Burns, the family's attorney, told reporters.