41 to stand trial in UAE on terrorism charges

The UAE will try 41 people for allegedly seeking to overthrow the government to set up a Daesh group-style caliphate in the country, the attorney-general said on Sunday.
The suspects, who include Emiratis as well as foreigners, are accused of setting up a group "with a terrorist, Takfiri ideology", in a bid to "seize power and establish a caliphate," UAE Attorney-General Salem Saeed Kubaish said.
Takfiris regard Muslims who do not follow their extreme interpretation of Islam as apostates punishable by death. It is the ideology of Al Qaeda as well as Daesh.
Kubaish said that the cell was highly organised, operating under a 'hierarchy' to recruit young Emiratis, obtain weapons and manufacture explosives, and spread militant propaganda.
The suspects have been accused of setting up cells to train members in handling weapons and the manufacture of explosives in preparation for attacks on UAE soil. They were "in contact with foreign terrorist organisations... to help them achieve their goals".
Kubaish said the suspects have been referred to the Federal Supreme Court on charges of setting up a terrorist organisation.
He said that an investigation by the Public Prosecution in Attorney-General's Office has shown that the 41 people set up and ran a terrorist group inside the UAE called the 'Al Manara Youth Group'.
They embraced an extremist, terrorist Takfiri ideology, with the intention of carrying out terrorist acts in the country in order to affect the security, safety and life of residents and to expose them, including the leadership and the symbols of the state, to danger.
The group also planned to cause damage to public and private property and to seize authority in the country with the aim of creating an alleged caliphate state, in conformity with their extremist Takfiri thoughts and beliefs.
In order to implement their goals and to carry out their terrorist acts, the members of the group obtained arms, ammunition and explosives, using money collected for that purpose. They also communicated with foreign terrorist groups and organisations, to whom they sent funds, to seek assistance to help them implement their goals in the UAE.
In order to manage the affairs of the terrorist group in such a way as to ensure that they could carry out their plans, the group's members set up a structure of committees and cells with specific functions. One individual was given the task of being the leader of the group, to supervise its activities and to issue the necessary orders and instructions. He was also to decide on the duties and roles of each committee and cell, and to lay down the overall policy and goals of the group and ways of achieving them as well as ways of communicating with foreign armed groups, providing the necessary funds and preparing plans and objectives.
The group also appointed a deputy leader who was assigned the task of supervising the activities of the various sections and of following up on the implementation of various proposals and activities.
In order to ensure the implementation of the group's plans and terrorist activities, they assigned tasks to the committees they had formed of recruiting young Emiratis, to disseminate amongst them extremist 'takfiri' ideas and views through activities falsely purporting to be of a religious nature.
The objective was that then these young Emiratis would be trained in camps specially established for the purpose in how to carry out terrorist acts and how to make explosive devices. The young people would be provided with income and transport to the camps, where they would meet others from the group and would be trained in shooting and fighting.
They would also be taught how to prepare, copy and record audio-visual material and printed material to promote their ideas and to encourage people to fight on the fraudulent basis that such acts would represent a 'jihad', such material to be distributed to members and to the public through the Internet.
In July, following the murder of an American teacher in an Abu Dhabi mall, authorities enacted tougher anti-terror legislation, including harsher jail terms and even introducing the death penalty for crimes linked to religious hatred and "takfiri groups".
Alaa Bader Al Hashemi, 30, was executed last month for December's stabbing murder of Ibolya Ryan, 47.
Hashemi's execution was the first in the UAE since January 2014 when a Sri Lankan was put to death by firing squad for murdering an Emirati man in 2006.
It is the second time in recent years that the UAE has carried out a mass trial on terrorism charges.