Dubai Three Iranians lost their appeal on Wednesday and will spend a life sentence in jail for kidnapping British-Iranian businessman Abbas Yazdanpanah in 2013.

The Iranian trio, R.A., K.G. and N.A., involved in the high-profile kidnap case of Yazdanpanah, who was drugged and smuggled out on a boat from Sharjah to Iran in June 2013.

In February, the Dubai Court of First Instance sentenced R.A., K.G. and N.A., to life in jail.

The main Iranian abductors, H.B., B.N. and I.N., who remain at large, were tried and sentenced in absentia and were also handed life imprisonment.

The three convicts pleaded not guilty and denied their involvement in the abduction when they defended themselves before the Dubai Appeal Court.

Presiding judge Saeed Salem Bin Sarm rejected the appeals of the convicts and upheld their primary ruling, the life sentence.

The defendants will be deported following the completion of their jail terms, Bin Sarm said in courtroom 20.

R.A. told the appellate court that he did not kidnap the victim.

“I have no connection to this case … I was arrested in Thailand and extradited here. I am not guilty,” he argued.

His partner in crime, K.G. contended: “I am not connected to this crime at all. I was outside the UAE at the time when the incident happened. I want the court to overturn my life sentence and acquit me. I am innocent.”

N.A. entered a similar plea.

Court records said interrogations revealed that a main Iranian suspect, identified as S.H., who died in custody, had plotted the kidnapping in advance.

Prosecution records said the victim was a keynote witness before the International Court of Justice in a case involving a well-connected Iranian gas company.

“He gave a statement via video conference on June 25, 2013 and he was scheduled to testify the next day. When Yazdanpanah’s statement went against the interests of those connected to that company, S.H. and his six accomplices kidnapped the victim. The defendants rented a villa in Al Baraha, rented three cars and purchased various tools that they used in the abduction. They monitored the victim for nearly five months before they [R.A., H.B., B.N. and I.N.] attacked him outside his office. Medical pills and syringes were found in the victim’s car that the defendants had used to drug the victim. The suspects wrapped him in a plastic sheet and took him to a ship that sailed to Iran,” Senior Chief Prosecutor Khalid Al Zarouni argued in court.

The businessman’s wife, a British citizen, told the court earlier that her husband was kidnapped shortly after he called her around 5pm to inform her that he was returning home.

Wednesday’s ruling remains subject to appeal before the Cassation Court within 30 days.