A football fan from Wolverhampton has launched a legal challenge against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after he was detained and tortured after wearing a Qatar football shirt on holiday.

Ali Issa Ahmad, 26, a security guard, says he was arrested, interrogated and detained while on holiday in UAE after watching an Asian Cup football match in January. He says that during his detention he was beaten, electrocuted, cut and burned and questioned repeatedly about why he was wearing a Qatari football shirt in UAE.

Diplomatic relations between the two countries were broken off in May 2017. The UAE accused Qatar of undermining security and stability in the region by funding and hosting terror groups.

Ahmad is bringing a human rights claim against the UAE government for the physical harm he suffered, which he hopes to fund with a CrowdJustice campaign.

According to information on the Foreign Office (FCO) website, it is an offence to promote Qatar in UAE and doing so can attract a large fine and imprisonment.

Ahmad’s lawyers are calling on the Foreign Office to launch a full investigation into what happened to him during his trip and wrote to the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, on Wednesday, urging him to take action.

The UAE has denied the security guard’s claims and says his injuries were self-inflicted to gain publicity.

Ahmad says he was forced to sign a confession saying he was guilty of wasting police time with the incident.

Ahmad had travelled to the UAE for a holiday in January. While he was there he got a ticket for an Asian Cup match between Qatar and Iraq on 22 January. The Arsenal fan wore a Qatar shirt to the match, not knowing that doing so is an offence in the UAE.

Ahmad returned to the UK with a series of knife wounds to his arm, injuries to his chest and a stab wound to his side. He said that a security official had knocked out a tooth when he punched him in the face.

He added that he was deprived of sleep, food and water for several days while he was interrogated, before being transferred to a police cell in Sharjah where he was held until 12 February. He said he was stabbed in the side one night in the police cell, which he was forced to share with 18 other people. He believes he was stabbed by another prisoner.

In a previously issued statement, a UAE embassy official said: “He was categorically not arrested for wearing a Qatar football shirt. This is instead an instance of a person seeking media attention and wasting police time.”

Ahmad said: “I must challenge their lies. I have the truth, I have the scars. I am suffering a lot from what they did to me. They cannot be allowed to keep doing this to people.”

He added that he was so traumatised by his ordeal in UAE that he has not been able to sleep properly since his return to the UK and keeps obsessively checking and rechecking that the door to his flat is locked, something he had never done before.

His lawyer Rodney Dixon QC of Temple Garden Chambers said: “The torture and abuse that Ali suffered was completely unjustified and gratuitous. It is shocking that a football fan can be treated in this way in UAE just for supporting a team at an international tournament.”

An FCO spokesman said they could not comment on private correspondence to the foreign secretary but would respond to the letter in due course.