UAE rejects Egypt’s request to free 11 ‘Brotherhood’ detainees

Relations between Egypt and the United Arab Emirates further nosedive after Abu Dhabi rejects Cairo’s call for releasing 11 Egyptian nationals allegedly linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.

UAE Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum informed top Morsi adviser Essam el-Haddad and intelligence chief Mohammed Shahata in a meeting on Wednesday that it “is not possible” to free the detainees without trial.

“We have a strong court system and justice will take its course,” UAE newspaper Gulf News said the Egyptian delegation was told.

UAE-Egypt relations deteriorated after Mohammed Morsi was last June elected president in the first democratic elections in the North African country since Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in a revolution in early 2011.

The UAE says the group of Egyptian nationals it arrested last month gathered sensitive information and had links to Emirati detainees accused of posing a threat to its national security.

Mahmud Ghozlan, a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, said in Cairo that the detention was an “unjust campaign” against his compatriots, most of whom are doctors or engineers.