A United Arab Emirates court has lifted a prison sentence but upheld a conviction on money laundering charges for U.S. citizen and civil rights attorney Asim Ghafoor, who was detained while transiting through Dubai last month, the Judicial Department and a lawyer for Ghafoor said on Wednesday.
The court ordered Ghafoor to pay a 5 million dirham ($1.36 million) fine and for 18 million dirhams in his account to be confiscated. But it removed a three-year jail term from an earlier sentence handed down in absentia in May, lawyer Habib Al Mulla told Reuters.
The anti-money laundering and tax evasion court in Abu Dhabi also ordered Ghafoor to be deported, the emirate's Judicial Department said in a statement posted on its Twitter account. It confirmed the jail term had been removed and that Ghafoor faced the fine and confiscation of his funds.
