The UAE announced on Wednesday that it had received from Jordan an Emirati citizen with Turkish citizenship, who was sentenced in absentia ten years ago to 15 years in prison on charges of establishing an organization affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Emirates News Agency, WAM, said that the UAE had handed over from the Jordanian authorities “the terrorist Khalaf Abd al-Rahman Hamid al-Rumaithi,” who was among 69 people linked to the Muslim Brotherhood who were sentenced by the Federal Supreme Court in the Emirates in July 2013 to imprisonment between 7 and 15 years on charges of establishing an organization. Secret aims to overthrow the regime.

At the time, human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Gulf Center for Human Rights, considered their conviction "unfair", noting that they had only exercised their right to freely express themselves.

On May 7, Al-Rumaithi (58 years old) was stopped at Amman airport while trying to enter Jordan from Turkey, in exile since his conviction, using his Turkish passport, according to an arrest warrant issued by the Jordanian police at the request of the UAE. He was later released on bail and allowed to enter Jordan, according to his lawyers, Human Rights Watch.

The next day, four plainclothes police officers arrested Al-Rumaithi while he was sitting with a friend in an Amman café. The Jordanian police later raided his hotel room and confiscated his bags, clothes and electronic devices, according to his lawyer.

On May 9, during a session attended by lawyers with Al-Rumaithi, a Jordanian court canceled his bail, ordered his transfer to prison, and presented a copy of the extradition request to the UAE. His lawyers say that since then they have not seen him or contacted him.

In 2013, the UAE prosecuted 94 people who belong to or support the banned “Society for Reform and Social Guidance,” which is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood movement, which is classified as “terrorist” in the UAE, in a case known as the “UAE 94.” At the end of the trial, 69 defendants, including Al-Rumaithi, were convicted of "belonging to an illegal secret organization and plotting against the country's ruling system," while acquitting 25 other defendants in the same case, including 13 women.

And according to what was reported on the Emirates News Agency on Wednesday, “Al-Rumaithi will be re-tried again” in accordance with the provisions of UAE law.

The agency stated that the procedures for Al-Rumaithi's extradition took place in accordance with "the agreements concluded on legal and judicial cooperation of the Council of Arab Interior Ministers concerned with the prosecution of criminals fleeing criminal justice in Arab countries."

On the other hand, Human Rights Watch says that the Jordanian constitution prohibits the extradition of "political refugees" on the basis of "their political principles or their defense of freedom."