quinta-feira, 29 de abril de 2010

5 Emiratis jailed for funding Taleban

By AGENCIES


DUBAI: Five Emiratis and an Afghan national have received jail terms in the United Arab Emirates for funding the Taleban, local newspapers reported on Wednesday.
The six men “were sentenced to three years in jail for funding the Taleban,” a Dubai-based English-language daily reported. Two men were acquitted of similar charges.
The Afghan was given money by the other five “to channel it to Afghanistan,” the newspaper said.
Two Emiratis, Rashid Dawood and Abdullah Hassan, were given an additional year for “attempting to set up an organization to enforce a strict code of Islam” which “the court said attacked civil liberties,” the paper said.
Another daily said two Emiratis, whom it did not name, assaulted “three Emiratis and a Bangladeshi, leaving them disabled for about 20 days,” in connection with punishing “people for what they claimed were offenses”.
Al-Ittihad newspaper said the trial before the Supreme Court began in early September.
The newspaper said at the time that the prosecution accused two defendants of financing terrorism and six others of promoting and supporting terrorism.
The prosecution submitted evidence from computers and documents seized when the defendants were arrested in October 2008, among a group of 21 people in the largest roundup of UAE nationals accused of terrorism-related offenses. At 3 a.m. on Oct. 30, 2008 police from several emirates raided the homes across Khor Fakhan, according to Abu Dhabi-based The National.
Charges against 13 people, including 12 Emiratis and an Egyptian, who was deported, were dropped, it said.
The group had argued before the Federal Supreme Court in Abu Dhabi that they had been coerced into signing confessions, the paper said.
Such trials are rare in the relatively stable UAE, a federation of seven emirates where foreigners make up more than 80 percent of the population.
Arab News