This is a heartfelt plea for help for my brother Alan Stevenson from Manchester who was travelling home from from Australia in June this year to visit our mum, probably for the last time.

He worked in Qatar in 2012 and opened a bank account with a credit card and loan. When you do this in Qatar you are asked to sign a blank cheque for the bank to use if you ever fall behind or miss a payment.

On the 3rd of June 2019 he was arrested at Prague airport, Czech Republic and has been kept in the notorious WW2 Pankrac Prison since, awaiting extradition to Qatar to serve a prison sentence of almost 6 years because the bank presented the cheque after he left Qatar in 2013

He had kept up payments until getting into financial difficulties later.

Although the debt was around £9,000 the bank wrote the cheque for 325,000 QAR (£73,500 ) and are now asking for over £83,000 due to added charges, fee’s and extortionate interest.

We are fighting the extradition case with the help of a Czech lawyer who’s fees are now rising by the week.

Alan would be released on bail if we can raise £71,000 or alternatively pay the bank the full amount, when they will withdraw the case. They will not agree a payment plan without yet another blank cheque being signed, risking a repeat of this situation in future.

If we could raise up to £55,000 our family would manage to raise the remainder.

Please, if you can help at all we would be so very grateful.

Many thanks

Jennifer Smail... on behalf of Alan Stevenson