{"id":24091,"date":"2016-03-23T01:38:43","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T01:38:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/uae-drops-terrorism-charges-against-libyans\/"},"modified":"2016-03-23T01:38:32","modified_gmt":"2016-03-23T01:38:32","slug":"uae-drops-terrorism-charges-against-libyans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/uae-drops-terrorism-charges-against-libyans\/","title":{"rendered":"UAE drops terrorism charges against Libyans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Prosecutors in the UAE have reportedly dropped terrorism charges against two Libyan-Americans and a Libyan-Canadian who have been detained for 18 months.<br \/>\nKamal and Mohamed al-Darrat and Salim Alaradi were informed of the decision on Monday, Mr Alaradi&#8217;s lawyer said.}<\/p>\n<p>However, the men will now face lesser charges of providing supplies to groups in a foreign country and collecting donations without official permission.<\/p>\n<p>UN experts said last month that they were being arbitrarily detained.<\/p>\n<p>There was evidence the three men and two other Libyans, Adel Rajab Nasef and Moad al-Hashmi, had been tortured and forced to sign confessions, they added.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Playing games&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>All five men were arrested in August 2014, after which they were allegedly held incommunicado in secret detention locations and in solitary confinement for prolonged periods of time.<br \/>\nIt was not until late 2015 that Mr Nasef and Mr Hashmi went on trial on the charge of funding, supporting and co-operating with terrorist organisations, while Mr Alaradi and Kamal and Mohamed al-Darrat were charged only in January 2016.<\/p>\n<p>The alleged terrorist organisations were said to be Islamist militias that emerged during the 2011 revolution in Libya, including Libya Dawn and Ansar al-Sharia.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, Mr Nasef and Mr Hashmi were acquitted by the Federal Supreme Court in Abu Dhabi, a verdict that Mr Alaradi&#8217;s brother said had given him hope.<\/p>\n<p>But following Monday&#8217;s announcement, Mohamed Alaradi &#8211; who was detained alongside his brother for four months &#8211; told AP news agency that state prosecutors had &#8220;fabricated&#8221; the new charges to ensure a guilty verdict.<\/p>\n<p>This showed the UAE&#8217;s state security department was &#8220;playing games&#8221;, he said.<br \/>\nKamal al-Darrat&#8217;s daughter, Amal, called the new charges, which carry a maximum penalty of 15 years imprisonment, &#8220;deeply concerning&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Alaradi and Kamal and Mohamed al-Darrat would remain in custody until 11 April, when their trial was scheduled to resume, Mr Alaradi&#8217;s lawyer said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-11108 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_88898148_88898146.jpg\" alt=\"Salim Alaradi&#039;s brother said the UAE&#039;s state security department was &quot;playing games&quot;\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Prosecutors in the UAE have reportedly dropped terrorism charges against two Libyan-Americans and a Libyan-Canadian who have been detained for 18 months. Kamal and Mohamed al-Darrat and Salim Alaradi were informed of the decision on Monday, Mr Alaradi&#8217;s lawyer said.} However, the men will now face lesser charges of providing supplies to groups in a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-24091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24091\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24091"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=24091"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=24091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}