UAE to try 41 on ‘caliphate’ seeking charge

United Arab Emirates (UAE) authorities plan to try 41 people of various nationalities including Emiratis on charges of setting up a terrorist group, the official WAM news agency reported on Sunday, adding the suspects wanted to set up a caliphate.

While mass trials on terrorism charges are rare in the UAE which has largely been spared, the Islamic militancy has hit other Arab states too.

“They were planning to harm public and private institutions, take power in the UAE and create a caliphate that matches their ideologies”, Kubaish said, adding that the suspects called themselves the Minaret Youth Group.

“Whoever seeks or communicates with a foreign state, terrorist organisation or with anyone who works for their interests, to commit any terrorist act, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, while the death penalty will be imposed if the terrorist act has been carried out”, the law states.

The UAE is part of the US-led coalition that has been carrying out air strikes against self-styled Islamic State (IS) group in Syria since September last year and has upped security measures since the wave of Arab Spring protests that swept the region four years ago.

This group has been ordered to stand trial and, as with all who are accused in the courts of the UAE, are innocent until proven guilty. Alaa Bader al-Hashemi, 30, was executed last month for December’s stabbing murder of Ibolya Ryan, 47.

Kubaish said the suspects set up an organizational structure including committees and cells with specific tasks.

The defendants were said to be linked to an Emirati Islamist political society, al-Islah, which prosecutors asserted was a branch of the Egypt-based Brotherhood. Rights groups have attacked the fairness of the hearings.

IS controls large areas of Iraq and Syria, and has carried out a series of attacks in the Gulf, including bombings of Shiite mosques in both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.