On Monday, the United Arab Emirates condemned three people to death for the kidnapping and killing of a Moldovan Israeli rabbi last November, a case that raised concerns about the safety of the small but in the growth of the country’s Jewish community.
The state press agency of the United Arab Emirates, WAM, reported that the state security chamber of the Federal Court of Appeal of Abu Dhabi decided the death penalty for the “premeditated murder with terrorist intention” of Rabbi Zvi Kogan.
A fourth person was sentenced to help crime – how the government did not say – to a prison sentence, followed by deportation from the country. The defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment, but in general this means being released after 20 years or more.
The authorities did not reveal the identities of condemned people, but the Ministry of the Interior of the United Arab Emirates had previously identified three people accused of murder such as Olimboy Tohirovich and Makhmudjon Abdurakhim, both 28, and Azizbek Kamilovich, 33 years old, all Uzbek citizens. State Media has released photos of them, blindfolded and chained to the wrists and ankles, after their extradition from Türkiye.
“The defendants had monitored and killed the victim,” Wam said in his report on Monday. “The evidence presented by the state of state security to the Court included detailed confessions of the defendants of murder and kidnapping crimes, together with forensic relationships, results of the post -mortem exam, details of the tools used in the testimonies of the crime and witnesses.”
The report did not mention the authorities who offer a reason for the murder of the Rabbi Kogan, 28 years old, or further details on how it was kidnapped and subsequently killed.
The rabbi disappeared on November 21 and was the last time in Dubai, the most populous of the seven Emirates of the nation, according to an Israeli official who at the time spoke at the New York Times. The Israeli news reports reported that his car had been found abandoned to Al Ain, a city in the area adjacent to Abu Dhabi, on the border with Oman. His body was found three days later.
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel denounced the murder at the time as an “anti -Semitic terrorist act”.
Rabbi Kogan was a double citizen of Israel and Moldova and had worked in the Emirates as part of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a hasidic branch of Orthodox Judaism that leads Jewish awareness all over the world. He also helped manage the Rimon Kosher supermarket in the Dubai district at the Wasl Road. This month, the supermarket announced that it was moving and would only accept delivery orders for the moment.
The Israeli Embassy and the Consulate in the Emirates did not immediately respond to requests for commentary on the sentences.
The kidnapping and killing of the rabbi have shaken the small Jewish population of the Emirates; The estimates of his number range from hundreds to a few thousand. More Israelis and Jews have made the Emirates their home since the country formally established ties with Israel in the Abraham agreements of 2020.
The Emirates authorities have declared on Monday that the capital phrases “are automatically subject to appeal” to the criminal division of the Federal Supreme Court. The cases of capital penalty are rare in the Emirates, but the executions are performed promptly after the defendants have exhausted their appeals.