UAE pardons Israeli woman sentenced to life over 500 g of cannabis
The United Arab Emirates pardoned Fidaa Kiwan, an Arab-Israeli photographer arrested in Dubai in April 2021, and she flew home to Israel on 26 March 2023. Prosecutors said she was found with 500 grams of cannabis and 50 grams of cocaine; her first sentence was death, later reduced to life on appeal.
An Arab-Israeli photographer, Fidaa Kiwan, was released from the United Arab
Emirates and flew home to Israel on Sunday, 26 March 2023.[1]Israel called
her pardon a “special gesture” to President Isaac Herzog, who had asked the UAE
to release her.[1]She had been arrested in Dubai in April 2021 while visiting
the city for work.[1]
According to prosecutors, she was found with 500 grams of cannabis and 50 grams
of cocaine.[1]She said the cocaine was not hers.[1]Her initial death
sentence was reduced to life in prison on appeal.[1]
President Herzog urged his UAE counterpart, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan,
to pardon her.[1]After the release, Herzog thanked the UAE president and
wished him “a month of kindness and peace” for Ramadan.[1]
Israel and the UAE normalised relations under a US-brokered deal in 2020, the
Abraham Accords.[1]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
Arrested
1
Cannabis
500 g
Prison
life
Agency type
Court
Cannabis
Herbal cannabis (500 g)
Activity
Possession
Charge
possessing cannabis and cocaine
Case stage
Sentenced
Sentence
Life imprisonment
Sources
BBC Newsbbc.comUAE pardons Israeli woman who faced life in prison
Open questions the AI reported
The report gives no exact date for her arrest beyond April 2021, nor a date for the death sentence or the appeal.
The cocaine component is excluded from the cannabis figure; no source separates how the two substances weighed in the charges.
The pardon is described only through the BBC's account of Israel's request; no UAE pardon document or official statement could be opened.
The article does not say whether she was tried in Dubai specifically or elsewhere in the UAE.
It is not stated what charge or provision produced the initial death sentence.
Abu Dhabi's federal appeal court upheld a three-month use sentence and a trafficking acquittal for a man caught collecting hashish in Al Nahda, Sharjah. His co-defendant was sentenced in absentia to life over 1,091.1 grams of cannabis-linked drugs.
Abu Dhabi's Court of Appeal overturned a life sentence for possessing cannabis and psychotropic substances with intent to traffic and reclassified the offence as possession for personal use. The court found no evidence of promotion, negotiation or delivery, and said the investigation did not explain why police had concluded he was trading.
Dubai's criminal court sentenced a 35-year-old Bangladeshi man to life in prison, 25 years under UAE law, for trafficking cannabis after police found 193.13 grams in his flat and WhatsApp messages about sales. He had been caught in a sting in Al Nahda after a Sudanese buyer led investigators to him.
Moufide Bouchibi, arrested in Dubai in March 2021 after nine years on the run, was sentenced on appeal in Bordeaux on 9 February 2022 to 18 years in prison for 2011-2012 cannabis go-fasts. The court added a two-thirds security period, a one-million-euro fine and a 2.9-million-euro customs fine, while his lawyers announced a cassation appeal and a parallel trafficking case continues.