Abu Dhabi: The Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeals sentenced a man to life imprisonment, to be followed by deportation after serving his term, after he was convicted of damaging an aircraft engine controls.
The Asian national, ALA , an aircraft maintenance technician at a national airport, was also ordered to bear the legal costs and have his laptop confiscated.
Prosecutors charged the man with intentionally damaging and disrupting an aircraft (Airbus 330-300) owned by a national airways, by tampering and damage to electronic control boxes that connect to jet engine no. 2 , which would have caused the aircraft to fall down once it took off. This was for a terrorist purpose, according to the court documents.
Prosecutors demanded that the man punished be in accordance with the federal law no. (7) of 2014 on combating terrorism and the federal law no. (20) of 1991 on the civil aviation.
'Mental disorder'
The lawyer of the defendant demanded last week that his client be acquitted, claiming that he was suffering from serious mental disorder and therefore he should be relieved of the consequences of his criminal conduct.
Accordingly, the court ordered the defendant to be examined by a medical committee specialising in mental disorders in the country.
The committee’s medical report showed that the person is psychologically fit and that he was responsible for his criminal actions attributed to him by the prosecution’s indictment.
Another case
In another case, the court sentenced SSDI, an Emirati, to seven years’ imprisonment for smuggling weapons and ammunition.
The court also ordered confiscation of all weapons and ammunition seized with him, and the defendant bears all legal costs.
In the same case, ARS, AMS, and ARL, all Emiratis, were sentenced to three years’ imprisonment each and fined Dh50,000 for possession of unlicensed weapons and ammunitions.
The court ordered the weapons and ammunitions to be confiscated.
In a third case, the court sentenced an Emirati to 10 years’ imprisonment after being convicted of setting up a terrorist cell and websites and WhatsApp groups to communicate with terrorists.
The court ordered confiscation of all computers, laptops, photographs and mobile phones used in the crimes.
The man also had his websites and personal accounts closed and ordered to bear all legal costs.
