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Omani man jailed in UAE over WhatsApp insults

Monday, 29 February 2016 5:35 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 29 February 2016 5:36 PM ]

UAE forces are seen at the al-Anad airbase in Yemen's Lahij Province, October 5, 2015. (AFP photo)

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Supreme Court has jailed an Omani national for three years for calling Emiratis killed in Yemen coward.

The court found the 29-year-old man, Saleh Mohammed Saleh al-Owaissi, guilty of "distributing information aimed at mocking and harming the reputation of the state," UEA-based al-Ittihad newspaper said on Monday.

He was also fined 50,000 dirhams (USD 13,625) for publishing the 'insults' on WhatsApp.

The UAE daily also said that the Omani citizen distributed an audio recording "in which he accused the state and its martyrs in Yemen of cowardness and treachery."

It was not immediately clear to whom and how many people he sent the recording.

The UAE has dispatched military forces to Yemen and actively assisted Saudi Arabia in the aggression against the impoverished Arab country. Saudi Arabia has been attacking Yemen since late March last year to bring the country’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a Riyadh ally, back to power.

More than 300 of the Colombian mercenaries have so far been deployed to Yemen based on an agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Blackwater, a security services company based in the United States.

The Colombians were promised a weekly salary of USD 1,000 and UAE citizenship.

Yemen’s Ansarullah fighters, along with allied army units, are fighting against the Takfiri militants and countering the Saudi aggression against the war-torn country.

Nearly 8,300 people, among them 2,236 children, have reportedly been killed and over 16,000 others injured in Saudi attacks. The strikes have also taken a heavy toll on the impoverished country’s infrastructure.

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