Abu Dhabi: Abdul Rahman Bin Subaih Al Suwaidi — convicted of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but later pardoned by President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan — has revealed that there is a growing number of defectors from the organisation after its involvement in a major conspiracy to damage the stability of Arab communities.

In a televised interview broadcast on Friday, Al Suwaidi disclosed that in 2012 and 2013, the organisation had directed its members in the UAE to encourage several Yemenis to insult the country and its symbols on Twitter, and said that he was part of a cell given this task. However, many were defecting because they now realise they had been brainwashed and kept in the dark regarding the organisation’s true agenda.

He said the UAE had made an important decision by designating the Muslim Brotherhood a ‘terrorist organisation’ and stopping its flow of funding.

The organisation established false ideology to popular support and sympathy by launching alleged charitable projects, he said, but this was only to gain political support in countries to achieve malicious goals. Those affected most he said were ordinary citizens who blindly followed the cause that eventually led them to betray their nations.

Al Suwaidi said the UAE’s steps to counter the Muslim Brotherhood had dealt the organisation a ‘painful blow’, which encouraged members to attack the country and its symbols to demonstrate that they belong to the organisation even if it’s against their nation’s interest.

He said he would continue to expose and unmask the truth about the Muslim Brotherhood, and had published a book Kabnjara which means ‘Take Him to Prison’.

The decision to pardon him, he said, had freed him from dark influences that had controlled him for 30 years.

“Three major reasons made me rethink what I was involved in,” he said. “The first is alienation, especially as I was always hiding, which affected my family and friends. We lived under a delusion. The organisation lied to its members by telling them that it will support them under all circumstances, but that did not happen,” he added.

“When the organisation disowned me, I found my true country, and its institutions received me and treated me in a civil way, which included providing legal, health and humanitarian support and rights. This eliminated the delusions created by the organisation,” he added.

Designating the movement a :terrorist organisation” had, according to him, given members reason enough to rethink their membership.