The Federal Supreme Court today acquitted four Arab and US defendants from charges of funding and co-operating with terrorist organisations.

The court also cleared a foreign woman from the charge of uttering indecent words in a public place after a medical report proved that she was not responsible for her act at the time of the offence. The court ordered her to be deported.

The court handed down a series of sentences ranging from acquittal to life imprisonment to 23 Arab defendants in the case of the al Qaeda terrorist organisation.

In another case regarding a terrorist threat, the court ordered that two defendants be sent to counselling centres and be placed under observation, and be banned from travel for six months from the date of conviction.

The court also heard the pleading of the public prosecutor in the case of seven Arab defendants accused of imparting classified information concerning a government department to the Lebanese terrorist Party of Hezbollah and to a foreign state. They also face counts of filming government departments and copying economic information about oil outputs in one of the UAE's emirates, maps of oil and gas fields and of establishing and running an international group affiliated to Hezbollah without a government permission.

The Court adjourned the trial to 6th June to hear the defence statement.

The apex court also looked into a number of cases related to state security in the presence of relatives of defendants and representatives of the media and civil society organisations.

Source :WAM