Emirati gets 15-year jail term for spying for Iran

Gulf News -- The Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeals on Tuesday issued tough rulings in a range of cases related to state security, handing out jail sentences ranging from three to 15 years. The court also issued fines ranging between Dh50,000 and Dh1 million in cases related to promotion of terrorism, espionage for foreign countries and joining terrorist organisations.

The court sentenced a 28-year-old Emirati, identified as H.A.M.M., to 15 years for spying for Iran.

The military man was found guilty of transferring sensitive military information to Iranian agents working at the Iranian embassy in Abu Dhabi.

The court also ordered confiscation of all documents and means of communications and directed him to pay for all judicial expenses.

The court also sentenced a Sudanese woman, 46, to 10 years in prison to be followed by deportation for aiding and abetting the military man through facilitating his contacts with the Iranian agents.

In another case, the court sentenced a 45-year-old Emirati man to 10 years in prison and a Dh1-million fine for promoting the terrorist ideology of Daesh in Syria and Ansar Al Sharia in Yemen.

The court also ordered the man to be placed under probation after serving his prison term and all equipment and means of communication seized.

The man was also found guilty of publishing articles and false information about Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which could harm the UAE’s relations with these countries.

The court sentenced four Jordanians to 10 years in prison and Dh1 million fine each after being convicted of setting up pages on social media to promote the ideology of terrorist organisations by publishing articles, information, photos, videos and electronic documents, which jeopardise the interests of the UAE.

According to the court documents, the materials contained false and fabricated information on the foreign policy of the UAE.

In another case, the court sentenced a 35-year-old Emirati man to 10 years in prison and a Dh100,000 fine after being convicted of espionage for Iran.

The man, who passed on information about a security entity to agents of the Iranian Embassy in Abu Dhabi, was also ordered to be put under probation for three years after serving his prison term.

The court sentenced his accomplice, a 45-year-old Bahraini, to three years in prison and Dh50,000 fine for having conspired with the first defendant to set up social networking sites and spread lies through them. The court also found him guilty of deliberately insulting UAE leaders by spreading lies on those sites.

In another case, the court sentenced an Emirati man to seven years in prison for spying for Iran.

The court found the defendant guilty of communicating information about oil and gas fields in Abu Dhabi with Iranian agents.

In the last case, two Syrians were sentenced to seven years in prison each to be followed by deportation for joining terrorist organisations Daesh and Al Nusra Front.

The court also sentenced the third suspect in the same case, a 17-year-old Syrian, to 18 months in prison.