AL-AIN, United Arab Emirates (Reuters)  A member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family was found not guilty on Sunday of the torture and rape of an Afghan man in a case that embarrassed the Persian Gulf emirate and raised questions over human rights.

The judge did not give a reason why the family member, Sheik Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, was exonerated of responsibility for the abuse, which had been captured on video and was broadcast last year by the American television network ABC.

But a lawyer for the sheik said that his client was found to have “diminished liability” because two former business associates had drugged him and taken the video to extort money from him.

The two men, the Lebanese-American brothers Bassam and Ghassan Nabulsi, were sentenced in absentia to five years and fined $2,723 for what the judge said was drugging, recording and publishing a video, and blackmail.