(MENAFN- Arab Times) A United Arab Emirates court on Monday 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, a U.S.- allied Gulf state strongly opposed to militant Islam.
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, according to evidence submitted at the trial. 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.
Police said she had become radicalised over the Internet and had not been targeting an American in particular, but was looking for a foreigner to kill at random. Attacks on Westerners are rare in the UAE, a wealthy oil exporter and tourism hub, but concern has been rising after a spate of Islamist militant attacks in neighbouring Saudi Arabia. Hashemi was arrested at her home where her car was found with blood on the steering wheel and bomb making materials inside.
The National said that Hashemi "was also found guilty of sending money to Al-Qaeda in Yemen, knowing the funds would be used in terrorist acts". The ruling was made by the Federal Supreme Court in Abu Dhabi, which means it cannot be appealed. The president can, however, decide to overturn the sentence or reduce it.
Hashemi, surrounded by four police officers, "showed no emotion as the verdict and sentence were announced," the paper said. "As she was led from court she smiled and waved at her father and brother, who were in court to witness the proceedings." International media have been denied access to her trial, which began on March 23. Hashemi had asked the court to provide her with psychological help, saying she had "unreal visions" and would see "ghostlike people" due to a chronic mental illness. The court ordered psychiatric tests which it said showed she was aware of her actions. In March, Attorney General Salem Saeed Kubaish said that investigators found she had "listened to lectures by late Al- Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, watched video clips of killings and beheadings," among other similar activities.
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