DUBAI: Four men were sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday for setting up a terrorist cell with links to Hezbollah.
The Federal Court of Appeal sentenced another two men to 10 years each in jail and acquitted five others, the state news agency WAM reported.
The men, described as Arab, were convicted on charges of planning to commit terrorist crimes and acts of vandalism against vital installations in the country.
The 11 defendants, all of whom have lived and worked in the UAE for more than 15 years, were arrested in late 2017 and early 2018.
They were charged in February with establishing a cell linked to the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
The court ordered them to be deported from the country after their sentences end, confiscated all their communications equipment, computers and mobile phones and charged them with all the judicial expenses.
The UAE, along with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait, classified Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in 2016 and warned its citizens and resident expatriates against any links to it.
UAE court jails six for setting up Hezbollah-linked terror cell
UAE court jails six for setting up Hezbollah-linked terror cell
Extermination of Palestinians must stop: African Union chair
ADDIS ABABA: The “extermination” of the Palestinian people must end, the chairman of the African Union Commission Mahmoud Ali Youssouf said on Saturday as he launched the organization’s 39th summit.
“In the Middle East, Palestine and the suffering of its people also challenge our consciences. The extermination of this people must stop,” said Youssouf, who was elected to head the institution a year ago.
The Gaza Strip, a small territory surrounded by Israel, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea, has been under a very strict Israeli siege since the start of the war triggered by Hamas’s deadly attack on October 7, 2023.
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data.
Since then, at least 71,667 Palestinians have been killed in the small coastal territory by Israel’s retaliatory military campaign, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
He also touched on the multiple conflicts raging in Africa.
“From Sudan to the Sahel, to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, in Somalia and elsewhere, our people continue to pay the heavy price of instability,” Youssouf said.
The summit brings together heads of state from the 55 member states of the African Union over two days.
This year’s theme is water sanitation.
