ABU DHABI // An Omani man has been jailed for three years and fined Dh50,000 for forwarding a WhatsApp message that mocked the UAE and its martyrs.
Saleh Mohammed Al Awaisi, an illiterate camel herder, shared an audio recording of an offensive poem on social media.
The poem ridiculed the country and its soldiers killed in Yemen.
Prosecutors said the information was broadcast online with the intent of mocking the country, its leadership and its martyrs by calling them traitors and cowards.
Al Awaisi posted the audio clip in September last year, the court heard.
He was tried by the Federal Supreme Court under the UAE’s cybercrime law number 5 of 2012 which criminalises all forms of electronic abuse.
Al Awaisi will be deported after serving his sentence.
nalremeithi@thenational.ae
