UAE court hands life terms to eight over Sudanese military weapons pipeline

Eight people have received life sentences from the Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal after being convicted of operating an illicit military supply and financial laundering ring aimed at arming the Sudanese military.

The judicial ruling revealed an elaborate network that combined commercial firms, falsified paperwork, wire payments, and direct cash handoffs to procure and ship arms, munitions, and gear to Sudan while masking the money trail. Key figures handed life prison terms include former Sudanese intelligence chief Salah Gosh, senior general Yasser Al Atta, military financial administrator Othman Al Zubair, and commercial broker Rashid Omar Abdul Qadir Ali. Fellow defendants Ahmed Abdullah, Ahmed Rabie Sayed Ahmed, Mohammed Fath Al Beik, and Maher Abdul Jalil also received life terms.

The court further convicted several individuals of money laundering offenses, handing down three-year prison sentences and individual fines of one million dirhams to seven defendants, including Gosh, Ali, Abdul Jalil, Abdullah, Othman Babiker, Khalid Yousuf Mukhtar, and Ahmed Khalafallah Abdullah. Two men, Mubarak Ali Al Sheikh and Mus'ab Awad Al Karim Hassan, were cleared of all allegations.

Investigators established that the group smuggled Goryunov-pattern munitions into the United Arab Emirates with the intent of flying the cargo to Port Sudan. The operation disguised the lethal air freight as shipments of healthcare and medical gear. Crucial funding for the supplies moved through Emirati bank accounts alongside significant hard currency transfers.

Judges noted that General Al Atta, serving as assistant to Sudan's top commander and head of procurement, solicited the armaments and arranged aviation clearance for the landing in Port Sudan despite awareness that the operation originated unlawfully within the UAE. Meanwhile, Al Zubair directed payments through informal money remittance networks to Abdul Jalil, who operated as the intermediate financial handler and passed roughly eight million dirhams in cash to Ali.

Six corporate entities, including Rashed Omar Brokerage, Portex Trade, Apollara Electronics Trading, Yellow Sand Trading, Wardat Al Masarra Trading, and Sudamina Free Zone, were each hit with one-million-dirham financial penalties for laundering. The tribunal ordered the shutdown of these businesses, the revocation of their operating permits, the confiscation of seized munitions, communication hardware, and 1.545 million dirhams in attached funds, and directed that convicted foreign nationals be deported following the completion of their sentences.

The ruling underscored that staging clandestine weapons transactions on Emirati soil during the Sudanese conflict threatened international arms embargoes and compromised the UAE's global diplomatic relations.