Brian Glendinning: Tears of joy as Scots dad who spent two months in horrific Iraq jail reunites with family at airport
THERE were tears of joy at Edinburgh Airport as a Scots dad who spent two months jailed in a horrific Iraq prison was reunited with his family.
Brian Glendinning spent two months locked up in a rat infested prison alongside terrorists and murderers over an alleged unpaid bank loan.
But after a hard-fought effort by his family, he was released on Sunday and reunited with them as he touched down at Edinburgh Airport this morning.
There were cheers and applause as the dad-of-three walked into the airport his family rushed to hug him, over two months since they last saw him.
Relatives shed tears of joy as the embraced their beloved brother, husband and son who they once feared they might never see again.
His brother John, 40, told reporters his sibling wasn't feeling good as his mum Meta could be heard sobbing as she hugged her son.
Brian said: "I just didn't think this day was coming any time soon. I'm back where I belong with my family and my friends. Just the emotions, I didn't think I was going to be here any time soon as I said.
"If it wasn't for the support from everybody back home, family, my friends, Douglas Chapman, Radha Stirling, thank you, thank you, I'd still be there. To be honest, I think I would have been on my way to Qatar and it wouldn’t have been for the World Cup.”
"That's it. Thanks guys and thanks to everybody from the village of Kincardine, for their support, my brother here and my other brother.
"Thank you everybody for your support."
As he walked away, reunited with his family, Brian joked: "Time to go home and get to the barbers."
Brian's wife Kimberley, 40, and their kids Lexi, 12, and Heidi, 16, were there to meet him off the plane. The beauty therapist, said: "I'm just overwhelmed really. It has been terrible.
"Trying to keep it together, trying to go to work every day and face the public. We are at the end now. There have been a lot of tears.
"There were periods where we never spoke to each other for a week at a time. We never knew what was happening.
"I've been walking the floors at night. He missed my fortieth birthday. It's my birthday and Christmas all at once."
His brother Lee, 48, added: "We're all ecstatic. We didn't think this day was going to come. I thought he was going to be there for another year or two years.
"This is a Christmas coming together for us all. He feared for his life. He was in with terrorists, he was in with Taliban, there were murderers. All it was, was for a debt. It's just a wee bit too much."
His mum Meta, 67, added: "I'm just ecstatically happy. I'm over the moon. My boy's home."
John vowed not to watch the World Cup in Qatar because of his brother's ordeal. He said: "It will be the first World Cup I've not watched. Not just because Scotland is not in it."
BRIAN'S ORDEAL
Brian's hopes of getting home faced a few delays, when his first flight home was cancelled over storms in Iraq, and he was questioned by airport authorities for an hour.
But he managed to fly to Turkey last night, before travelling to Stansted and then onto Edinburgh this morning.
Brian was jailed in September after the Qatar National Bank issued an Interpol red notice against him over a bank loan.
Totally unaware of the action taken against him, the dad-of-three was arrested when he landed in Basrah.
Brian's family feared they might never see him again as he was jailed in the hellhole prison, awaiting extradition to Qatar where he faced even more years in jail.
Why was Brian Glendinning in Prison?
BRIAN, 43, was working in Qatar in 2016 when it is understood he was pressured to take out a £20,000 loan.
But when Brian took sick he kept paying off the loan but fell behind on some payments when his sick pay ended and he had to return home.
His family claim the bank then took Brian to court in his absence in 2017 for fraud, where he was given a two-year jail sentence.
They then claimed the Gulf state had him added to the Interpol red list in 2019 and a warrant was issued.
However, John claims the warrant was only valid for six months and was out of date at the time of Brian's arrest in 2022.
Brian was arrested when he arrived in Iraq to work for a BP oil refinery on September 12 of this year.
John said if Brian was extradited, he faced two years in jail and would not have been allowed to leave Qatar until his debt had been fully paid.
A judge in Basrah requested the warrant papers from Qatar, which delayed the process and kept Brian in jail.
Brian's family back in Scotland launched a desperate bid to get him released.
John said when Brian was arrested, he had no idea he was on the red list or that he had been sentenced to a jail term in Qatar.
Brian then spent nine weeks in a Baghdad prison, fearing for his life and imprisoned alongside terrorists and murderers while surrounded by rats and worrying about his health due to the overcrowding and poor conditions.
He was forced to share a ten-person cell with 40 other prisoners, share soiled mats to sleep on and use showers with dirty water, causing his skin to break out.
We previously told how Brian apologised to his beloved wife Kimberly for missing her 40th birthday during his ordeal, in one a heartbreaking call the dad made from the jail.
His family hired an Iraqi lawyer to represent him, who previously claimed there was "no case" for him to be detained.
The Glendinnings, led by Brian's younger brother John, organised a protest outside the Scottish Parliament to pressure more action and called on stars like David Beckham to be more vocal as Qatar are due to host the world cup.
He was released after a settlement was reached with the bank and the extradition request was dropped.
We told earlier how the Scots engineer was "jumping with joy" when guards came to release him.
And younger brother John told how their were "screams of joy" as he delivered the news they were waiting for to his wife and kids.
"There is a positive that he isn't home right away, he is getting some time to process what has happened before he sees his family.
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"He has been through a horrific and horrendous experience and when he gets back we'll all keep an eye on him and make sure he is ok."
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