UAE court sentences Jamal Khashoggi's lawyer to three years in prison

Dubai, July 17

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has sentenced an American citizen and former lawyer of Jamal Khashoggi — the dissident Saudi journalist who was killed at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018 — to three years in prison on charges of money laundering and tax evasion.

Asim Ghafoor will be deported, the UAE’s state-run WAM news agency reported late Saturday, without saying when. The Abu Dhabi Money Laundering Court also ordered that Ghafoor pay a fine of USD 816,748 stemming from his in-absentia conviction.

The UAE framed Ghafoor’s arrest as a coordinated move with the US to “combat transnational crime”. Emirati state-run media said American authorities had sough the UAE’s help with an investigation into Ghafoor’s alleged tax evasion and suspicious money transfers in the Emirates.

The autocratic Gulf Arab sheikhdom pronounced the sentence a day after Washington-based human rights watchdog Democracy for the Arab World Now raised the alarm about Ghafoor’s arrest from the Dubai International Airport.