An Abu Dhabi court sentenced three people to death and one to life in prison on Monday for the November murder "with terrorist intention" of an Israeli rabbi, state media said.
The ruling came about four months after Tzvi Kogan's death dealt a blow to the tiny Jewish and Israeli communities in Muslim-majority UAE.
"The Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeals' State Security Chamber has unanimously convicted the defendants of the kidnapping and murder of Moldovan-Israeli citizen" Kogan, UAE state news agency WAM said.
The killing was a rare violent incident involving an Israeli citizen in the United Arab Emirates, which previously identified the main suspects as coming from Uzbekistan.
Kogan was living and working in the Emirates as a representative of the Chabad Hasidic movement, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish group known for its outreach efforts worldwide.
The 28-year-old rabbi was found dead in November, in what Israel's prime minister called "an abhorrent anti-Semitic terrorist attack".
"The court unanimously sentenced the three defendants who carried out the murder and kidnapping to death, while the accomplice who aided them received a life sentence," WAM said.
The four of them were convicted for "premeditated murder with terrorist intention", it said.
'Model of coexistence'
The court found that those convicted had tracked and murdered Kogan, with evidence including "detailed confessions to the crimes of murder and kidnapping, along with forensic reports, post-mortem examination findings, details of the instruments used in the crime, and witness testimonies", WAM said.
"Under UAE law, sentences of capital punishment are automatically subject to appeal and are referred to the Criminal Division of the Federal Supreme Court for review and adjudication," it added.
In late November, two days after Israel confirmed Kogan's murder, Turkish security sources told AFP the three main suspects had been arrested in Istanbul. The UAE thanked Ankara for their cooperation in their arrest.
A day earlier, Emirati authorities had said the three suspects, nationals of Uzbekistan, were in custody.
WAM identified them at the time as Olimboy Tohirovich, 28, Makhmudjon Abdurakhim, 28, and Azizbek Kamilovich, 33.
The identity and nationality of the fourth suspect remained unclear.
The UAE normalised relations with Israel in 2020 alongside Bahrain and Morocco in a series of US-brokered agreements known as the Abraham Accords.
It was the first Gulf country to normalise ties with Israel and only the third Arab nation to do so after Egypt and Jordan.
The oil-rich Gulf state opened its first official synagogue within an interfaith centre in Abu Dhabi in 2023 to cater to the small but active Jewish community that had previously prayed in private.
Monday's WAM report cited Attorney General Hamad al-Shamsi as saying the UAE, whose population is made up mainly of expatriates, "stands as a global model of coexistence and tolerance, where its laws protect all residents, regardless of religion or ethnicity".
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