BREAKING NEWS

Agency: UAE to try 94 citizens over plot to seize power

DUBAI - The United Arab Emirates has ordered 94 citizens to be tried on charges of seeking to seize power in the US-allied Gulf Arab country, the attorney general said on Sunday.
State news agency WAM quoted a statement by the attorney general as saying the suspects had publicly called for adherence to the Islamic religion when in fact they were secretly plotting to take over the oil-producing country.
"Their unannounced aims were to seize power and confronting the main principles which the rule is based on," WAM said.
"They had plotted for that discreetly at secret meetings they held in their homes, farms and other places where they tried to conceal and hide what they were plotting from the concerned authorities."
Authorities in the UAE last year rounded up about 60 people, many of members of al-Islah, an Islamist group suspected of links to the Muslim Brotherhood organization which is banned in the country, according to a privately owned newspaper.
Al-Khaleej newspaper said in September the detained Islamists had confessed to setting up a secret organization with an armed wing with the aim of seizing power and establishing an Islamist state in the UAE.