American citizen Zack Shahin has spent the last 15 years in a Dubai prison after being convicted of fraud, embezzlement and other financial crimes.

His family has blamed the United States government, claiming they prioritized negotiating the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner over helping with the case of Shahin.

"He is rotting," British activist Martin Lonergan told Fox News.

"If you can imagine a man is dying because he's rotting. They're cutting bits of Zack away, and he's dying trying to fight the infection."

Fox New reported that Shanin shares a cell with 60 prisoners, sleeping on a plastic mattress while being covered with a dirty blanket and wearing clothes that have never been washed.

An appeal to the US government for Zack Shahin

His family asked the State Department for help back in November in their bid to bring him back to the United States.

They were in contact with the government before the US sent their letters to the United Arab Emirates last month.

In the meantime, the United States were negotiating Griner's possible release - one which the UAE reportedly helped facilitate - after she was arrested last year and jailed for carrying cannabis oil into Russia.

"They completely abandoned us, they completely pushed us to the side," Zack's son Ramy Shahin said.

"Maybe we're not newsworthy enough for them - we're not famous, we're just an ordinary family - and they just left us."

Who is Zack Shahin?

Shahin became the CEO of a real estate development firm owned by the Dubai Islamic Bank back in 2004.

Yet, after Mohammed Khalfan bin Kharbash, who brought Shahin to the UAE, passed away, he was arrested on the aforementioned charges.

"My dad's just an ordinary American guy who started working hard to make a name for himself," Ramy added.

"He took this little real estate company and made it what it became and built so much of what Dubai is known for. And then they just took him down."