UAE court jails three men for involvement in banned groups

A court in the United Arab Emirates on Monday jailed two citizens of the Gulf Arab state to 10 and seven years in jail for membership of a "banned secret organisation", state news agency WAM reported.

In a separate case, the court sentenced a man from another Arab state to three years for writing slogans and drawing on walls in support of "a terrorist organisation" and writing offensive statements against state officials, it said.



The agency did not identify the men or the organizations, but the UAE has been pursuing a crackdown on militants it accuses of trying to destabilise the Western-allied OPEC oil exporter.

In the first case, the Federal Supreme Court in Abu Dhabi convicted one man of holding a senior position in the "banned secret organisation" and sentenced him to 10 years. It jailed the second for seven for belonging to the same organisation, running one of its UAE offices and promoting its views.



The UAE has banned several militant groups, including al-Islah, which is suspected of being linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.

In 2013, the UAE convicted dozens of militants, many of them suspected of belonging to Islah, on charges of plotting to overthrow the government, in a hearing criticised by rights groups.