Banker's 12-month ordeal as 'hostage' of Qatari sheikh

* username: rupertbu

With a new Porsche in the drive, a multi-million dollar salary and matching lifestyle, banker David Proctor had few regrets about moving to Qatar.

The Cambridge-educated financier – with 25 years’ experience in banking around the globe – was head-hunted to launch a new bank in the hugely wealthy Gulf state.

But now his friends say he has been held ‘hostage’ for almost a year in the country’s capital Doha, apparently caught in a power struggle within Qatar’s ruling elite over the emirate’s fast-growing financial sector.

Mr Proctor, 49, has been denied a visa to leave and is separated from his family in Singapore. He has seen his four-month-old son for just two weeks, when his wife Trinh visited last October.