UAE court jails Emirati, six other nationals for Hezbollah links

One Emirati and two Lebanese men were given life term, an Iraqi and a Lebanese man were jailed for 15 years each

ABU DHABI: A top Emirati court sentenced on Monday seven people to up to life in prison after convicting them of forming a cell linked to Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, state media said.

One Emirati national and two Lebanese men were given life sentences, while an Iraqi and another Lebanese man were jailed for 15 years each, according to state news agency WAM.

An Egyptian woman and another Emirati man were each jailed for 10 years, it said.

The charges included "passing classified information about a governmental department to Lebanon's Hezbollah [group] and for the benefit of a foreign country," WAM said.

The defendants were also accused of passing information about "oil production in one of the emirates as well as maps of oil and gas fields," it added.



They were also charged with "forming and managing an international group belonging to the [Hezbollah] party without a licence from the government," it said.

The trial at the state security court was attended by some of the defendants' family members, as well as lawyers and representatives of local media, WAM said.

The Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council in March declared Hezbollah a "terrorist" group over the movement's backing for the Syrian regime.



Hezbollah is fighting in Syria in support of the government of President Bashar al Assad against opponents including Gulf-backed rebels.

In another hearing, the court jailed an Emirati man for seven years for "fighting with a terrorist group in Syria", The National daily reported.

His sister, 34, was sentenced to five years and fined $136,240 for posting insulting tweets against the state, the paper said.

The 24-year-old was found guilty of joining the Ahrar al Sham Islamist group in Syria in 2013 and receiving military training.

His lawyer said he had gone to war-ravaged Syria only to retrieve the body of his father who was killed while fighting for the group, the newspaper also said.