AFP
Abu Dhabi
The United Arab Emirates is to try 41 people for allegedly seeking to overthrow the government to set up an Islamic State (IS) group-style caliphate in the Gulf state, prosecutors said yesterday.
Such mass trials on terrorism charges are rare in the UAE which has largely been spared the militancy threat that has hit many other Arab states.
The suspects, who include Emiratis as well as foreigners, are accused of setting up a group “with a terrorist, takfiri (extremist) ideology”, in a bid to “seize power and establish a caliphate”, the prosecutor general said.
They are accused of setting up cells to train members in handling weapons and the manufacture of explosives in preparation for attacks on UAE soil.
Prosecutors charge that they were “in contact with foreign terrorist organisations... to help them achieve their goals.”
“They were planning to harm public and private institutions, take power in the UAE and create a caliphate that matches their ideologies,” attorney-general Salem Saeed Kubaish said.
“They had firearms, munitions and explosive materials ... they communicated with external terrorist groups and organisations which provided them with whatever money they needed and with people to achieve their goals inside the nation.”
The UAE is part of the US-led coalition that has been carrying out air strikes against IS in Syria since September last year.
In July, following the murder of an American teacher in an Abu Dhabi mall, authorities enacted tougher anti-terror legislation, including harsher jail terms and even introducing the death penalty for crimes linked to religious hatred and “takfiri groups”.
Alaa Bader al-Hashemi, 30, was executed last month for December’s stabbing murder of Ibolya Ryan, 47.
Hashemi’s execution was the first in the UAE since January 2014 when a Sri Lankan was put to death by firing squad for murdering an Emirati man in 2006.
The prosecutor said yesterday that the cell was highly organised, operating under a “hierarchy” to recruit young Emiratis, obtain weapons and manufacture explosives, and spread Islamist propaganda.
It is the second time in recent years that the UAE has carried out a mass trial on terrorism charges.
In 2013, it sentenced 60 people to jail terms of between seven and 15 years for links to the Brotherhood in the first trial of its kind in the country.
The Brotherhood is one of dozens of groups outlawed in the UAE.
The UAE remains a key Western ally in the fight against IS, having last month established with US backing a centre to counter the militant group’s propaganda.
The extremist group, which controls large areas of Iraq and Syria, has carried out a series of attacks in the Gulf, including bombings of Shia mosques in both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
