DUBAI: A United Arab Emirates court yesterday sentenced a UAE woman to death for the Islamist-inspired killing of an American kindergarten teacher in December, the state news agency WAM said.
The teacher, identified as Romanian-born Ibolya Ryan, a mother of 11-year-old twins, was stabbed to death in a toilet at an Abu Dhabi shopping mall.
The Federal Supreme Court in Abu Dhabi convicted the woman, Ala’a Badr Abdullah Al Hashemi, 30, of the killing and imposed the death penalty, WAM said.
The court said the crime amounted to “a direct threat to the security and stability of society” and that the case was dealt with an anti-terrorism law passed last year by the UAE.
The court’s ruling was final and not subject to appeal. However, executions are extremely rare in the UAE and it was not immediately clear when Hashemi might be put to death.
Hours after killing Ryan, Hashemi placed a makeshift bomb outside the front door of an apartment of an Egyptian-American doctor living in the UAE, but the device was safely dismantled.
Pan-Arab Al Arabiya television said the court proceeded with the trial after medical examination confirmed the defendant had been aware of her actions and was not suffering from any mental illness.
REUTERS
