The UAE's supreme court upheld a life sentence against a Turkish citizen for promoting two extremist groups in Syria and transferring funds out of the Gulf state, AFP reported Tuesday (April 30th).
The ruling, handed down late Monday, comes less than two weeks after Turkey arrested a UAE citizen suspected of playing a role in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi last October in Istanbul. The man was found hanged in his cell on Sunday.
The supreme court in Abu Dhabi upheld the life sentence of the 49-year-old Turkish citizen for "launching an extensive campaign on a Facebook account named 'Ali Ozturk Mehmet' without getting an official permit" to promote "the ideologies of the two terrorist groups and sending them funds through money transfer companies in the UAE", the state news agency WAM said.
According to the indictment, the man was found guilty of "colluding" with former al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front and Ahrar Al-Sham, two radical groups in Syria.
An Arab man was also found guilty of setting up and managing accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Telegram and WhatsApp "under the pseudonym Abu Mohamed Al Adnani with the intent of promoting the fanatic ideologies of the 'Islamic State of Iraq and Syria' (ISIS)", WAM said.
