The Abu Dhabi Misdemeanor Court, at its session yesterday, looked into 5 cases of defendants accused of defaming and slandering religious preacher Wassim Youssef on social media, and decided to reserve cases for judgment in the next March 3 session.
During the session, four defendants attended, the fifth was absent due to his illness, and his defense presented a medical report on his case to the court, the rotation of lawyers, while all the defendants present denied the charges against them, and demanded not to accept the cases and judge their innocence, and reject civil suits.
In detail, the defense of the five defendants was unanimous in the absence of previous knowledge between the accused and the complainant, and that their tweets on the social networking site "Twitter" were in response to what he says in the media, and his skepticism about Sahih Al-Bukhari and his talk about some of the companions and followers, within the framework of freedom The opinion stems from their jealousy of their religion and homeland, especially since some external platforms have used the complainant's statements to offend the United Arab Emirates.
Lawyers argued that the case had not been completed for several reasons, including the complainant submitting the communication after the legal period had passed for the right to litigation, which amounted to three months, the right to permissible criticism, exemption from punishment for the goodwill of the accused, and the absence of the material and moral pillars of the crime, in addition to the fact that the communications were opened without anyone Adjective, since the agency granted to the complainant’s lawyer does not give her the right to open communications.
They pointed out that thousands of accounts on social media from inside and outside the UAE addressed the complainant's ideas, but the latter chose these defendants to sue them due to their social status, stressing that the defendants pushed their love and jealousy of their religion and country to respond to the complainant, and their tweets did not include any abuse of his person, rather they were Directed to his ideas, which is permitted by law, especially since the complainant has a media platform that explains and promotes his ideas, unlike them, there is no way for them except social media, and they also attached notes to their defenses, a dump of a memory card "flash" that includes the complainant's statements that prompted the defendants to respond Les through social networking site Twitter.
It is worth noting that the case of the preacher Waseem Yusef witnessed in its previous sessions, 21 lawyers volunteered to defend the accused, and the 16 cases filed by the complainant were divided into three judicial departments.
Religious preacher Waseem Yusef was attacked on social media months ago because of his talk about "Sahih Al-Bukhari." Yusuf said in a tweet last June on his official page on Twitter, that 163 Twitter accounts will be referred to the Public Prosecution, indicating that he worked On collecting tweets issued by these accounts.
He continued, saying: "I have endured a lot but unfortunately continued. They practiced the most severe bullying, bad manners and insults. For this," I swear to God, I will not give up my right ... and the judiciary is among us. ", As he put it.