Experts on countries of origin by country

A Middle East specialist, Riad trains, advises, lectures, and researches such topics as Business, Politics, and Migration, inter alia, publishing on them and others, as well as making media contributions. He holds a High School Diploma from l’École internationale de Genève; a BA from the American University of Beirut, Faculty of Arts and Sciences; and an MLitt from the University of Oxford, Faculty of Social Studies. Among other present positions he is Country of Origin Information expert for the Fahamu Refugee Program, Oxford; Special Advisor to the Global Challenges Forum, Geneva; and board associate, SUNSGLOW Global Training in the Rule of Law, New York City. He is fluent in Arabic and English, with a strong knowledge of French. 

Dr. Daanish Faruqi is a Visiting Researcher at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.  A scholar of migration and mobility in the Middle East and North Africa, he has leveraged his expertise both in academia and in international development. At Georgetown he researches democracy promotion and conflict resolution through transnational religious humanitarianism. Relying on fieldwork with transnational humanitarian NGOS immediately following the 2023 Syrian/Turkish earthquake, his latest writing deals with the viability of religious humanitarianism in effectively managing refugee crises. He has a forthcoming interview with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on this project and its potential for peace building.

He completed his Ph.D. from Duke University, where he wrote his dissertation on the role of Syrian Sufi religious scholars in joining the 2011 uprising against Bashar al-Assad. Through several years of ethnographic and historical fieldwork in Morocco, Turkey, and Jordan, conducting hundreds of Arabic-language interviews, his work revealed the role of 19th century migration from North Africa to Damascus in informing contemporary… Read more

Dr. Shaul Gabbay completed a BA at Bar Ilan University and an MA at Tel-Aviv University. In 1991 he received a Presidential Fellowship from the U.S. to continue his studies. In 1995 he completed the PhD program at Columbia University in New York and received an invitation from the University of Chicago for a Post Doctoral program. In 1998 Dr. Gabbay returned to Israel to join the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Professor Gabbay joined the University of Denver as the Director of the Institute for the Study of Israel in the Middle East at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies in 2001- 2010.  He continued his research at DU as a Senior Scholar until 2015 when he was appointed Director of the Global Research Institute.

His areas of expertise include Middle East cultures and societal norms,   Middle East conflicts, and human rights issues existing in Muslim societies.  He is regularly cited and acts as a commentator in national and international media such as the Associated Press, CBS, NBC, FOX and MSNBC.

The Expert is a Lecturer in Comparative Politics and International Relations of the Middle East. 

Hugh Miles is an Arabic and French speaking journalist who has been living in Cairo for most of the past 20 years researching and writing about all aspects of Arab society and culture. Since 2004 Miles has covered news in North Africa and the Middle East region professionally for diverse international media including the BBC, Al Jazeera, New York Times, Telegraph, Guardian, London Review of Books, Mirror, Mail, Sun and many others. He is a contributor to the Global Organized Crime Index designed to assess levels of organised crime in 193 UN member states and gives regular, ongoing training sessions to the UK FCDO about organised crime in the Middle East as well as, separately, the media environment in the Middle East.

Miles is the founder of Arab Digest, an independent UK ltd. media company specialising in Arab affairs. Arab Digest is an online private members club where business leaders and regional experts discuss the latest developments in the Middle East and North Africa each day. Paying members include the United Nations, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, The Economist, Oxford University, King’s College London University, Princeton University, BAE, Chevron and many more. 

The Expert is a North Africa and Middle East specialist and has produced over 400 expert witness reports for the UK courts across a range of countries including Libya, Iraq (including KRI), Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria. The Expert has also served as an expert witness in several terrorism related cases in the UK, US and Ireland; as an expert witness in a Libyan case at the Commercial Division of the UK’s High Court; and as a country guidance expert on Libya in the UK courts (2017). The Expert has also carried out numerous linguistic and nationality assessments and provides translation services (Arabic-English). 

Dr David Seddon is a social scientist with more than 40 years experience in Africa and the Middle East, and Nepal, who has produced around 500 country expert witness reports 

Dr Zagud holds an intensive research experience on international public law, international human rights law, international relations and immigration law. 

Dr Zagud takes instructions on all Arab cases from: Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

He maintains his expertise in all legal matters related to Arab nationals including cases pertaining to asylum, immigration, family and crime. Dr Zagud writes expert reports on all legal matters as well as nationality matters, languages, blood feuds, honour killing, domestic violence, risk of return and Islamic law.

His expertise centres around the people with whom he shares cultural understanding, languages, religious beliefs, and numerous national characteristics.

Cases undertaken

The Expert has experience in providing Country of Origin reports and analyses, he also provides documents authentication reports on various legal proceedings for clients in the UK and internationally. he is mostly instructed in following cases: