Verdict in Trial of Suspected UAE 'Qaida Cell' due on June 23
A UAE court will deliver its verdict next week in the trial of a suspected "Al-Qaida cell" accused of supporting Al-Nusra Front, the jihadist network's Syrian affiliate, state news agency WAM said Monday.
The nine men are charged with joining an "Al-Qaida organization and forming a cell" in the United Arab Emirates to promote its ideas, WAM said.
The men had also "financed Al-Nusra Front," WAM reported, adding that the Federal Supreme Court, whose rulings are final, will announce its verdict on June 23.
Local media said the group, whose members are aged between 22 and 44, includes five Tunisians, two Palestinians -- one of whom is being tried in absentia -- a Jordanian, and a Lebanese national.
Two of the defendants, the Jordanian and a Tunisian, were accused of running a website promoting Al-Qaida's ideology and aimed at recruiting fighters to carry out "terror acts" abroad.
Abu Dhabi said in April 2013 it had dismantled an Al-Qaida cell planning attacks in the UAE, one of the most stable countries in the Middle East.
Previously, Emirati media outlets had said the defendants, whose trial began on May 6, were accused of plotting attacks in the Gulf state, but the allegations have not been mentioned since.
The UAE, like most of the Gulf monarchies, emerged unscathed from the wave of Arab Spring uprisings in 2011.
But dozens of Emiratis and Egyptians have been jailed in the past months for forming cells of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is outlawed in Egypt and accused of seeking to overthrow the Gulf monarchies.
Foreigners account for more than 85 percent of the UAE's estimated population of eight million, attracted by work opportunities in the oil-rich country.
Source: Agence France Presse
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