UAE court jails three on terror charges

A UAE court on Wednesday sentenced three people to up to five years in prison after convicting them of belonging to a “terrorist organization,” state media said.

The Abu Dhabi-based Federal Supreme Court handed two Emiratis jail terms ranging from one to five years, the official news agency WAM said.

A third defendant from an unnamed Arab country was sentenced to three years, after which he will be deported, it said, without giving details of the organization to which they were alleged to belong.

News website 24.ae said the trio formed a “terror cell for Al-Nusra Front,” the former Syrian affiliate of Al-Qaeda that renamed itself Fateh al-Sham Front last year.

The website said the Arab defendant was Palestinian.

The United Arab Emirates is a member of the US-led coalition that has been bombing ISIS in Iraq and Syria since September 2014.

Authorities in the Gulf state have enacted anti-terror legislation, including the death penalty and harsher jail terms for crimes linked to religious hatred and extremist groups.