British academic Matthew Hedges said he had "no other option but to confess" during nearly seven months of detention in the United Arab Emirates on espionage charges.
The UAE pardoned Hedges from a life sentence in November after showing a video of him purportedly confessing to being a member of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and researching which military systems the UAE was buying.
In the video, which was sometimes inaudible and shown with subtitles that could not be independently verified, Hedges appeared to say he approached sources as a doctoral student. Britain has denied he was a spy and welcomed his pardon.