Avon, Ohio, Mayor Apologizes to Emirates Visitor for Ordeal

The UAE also summoned a senior U.S. diplomat to express its "dismay at the brutal way" police treated one of its citizens

An Ohio mayor apologized Sunday after a visitor from the Middle East was accused of being a terrorist and handcuffed by police at gunpoint.

In the wake of the incident, the United Arab Emirates urged its citizens abroad to avoid wearing the country's traditional white robes and headscarf, NBC News reported.

The UAE also summoned a senior U.S. diplomat to express its "dismay at the brutal way" police treated one of its citizens.

Officers were dispatched to a hotel in Avon, less than 20 miles west of Cleveland, after staff called 911 to allege a Muslim guest named Ahmed Al Menhali was "in full headdress with multiple disposable phones, pledging his allegiance to ISIS," according to NBC station WKYC. When the officers arrived, they found Menhali speaking Arabic on his cellphone and ordered him to the ground.

The officers discovered that Menhali was not armed, and was later taken to the hospital after collapsing.

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