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JERUSALEM (AP) — The United Arab Emirates has sentenced an Israeli woman convicted of drug charges to life in prison, her lawyer said Thursday.
The court initially sentenced her to death, but it was lifted last week. Israel said it had been closely following the UAE case, the first of the so-called Abraham Accords brokered by the Trump administration in 2020 to normalize ties with Israel.
Fida Kiwan, a 43-year-old resident of Haifa, Israel, was arrested in March 2021. Authorities said they found marijuana, cocaine and ecstasy in the apartment where she was living on suspicion of knowingly selling the drugs. She denies the allegations.
She was sentenced to life in prison, said Israeli lawyer Mordechai Tzivin, who represented her. He said the UAE’s law enforcement system was “remarkably accurate” and there was precedent for amnesty in cases of heavy sentences.
There was no immediate comment from Israel or the UAE.
Israel’s foreign ministry last week welcomed the decision to abolish the death penalty, saying it was “pleased that through legal and other efforts, the death penalty was finally abolished”.
Since normalization, Israeli tourists have flocked to Dubai, eager to catch a glimpse of its futuristic skyscrapers, world-famous malls and other attractions. Israel’s top leaders have already met with their Gulf counterparts, and business people have struck a major deal even before the recent signing of a free trade agreement, Israel’s first with an Arab country.
The UAE has some of the strictest drug laws in the world. Trafficking usually carries a life sentence, while the holder has a shorter prison sentence.
While UAE law allows for the death penalty in certain circumstances, it is rarely carried out. The last known executions were in 2011 and 2014 against two men convicted of murder.
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