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The United Arab Emirates on Monday sentenced three people to death for the abduction and killing<\/a> of an Israeli Moldovan rabbi last November, a case that raised concerns about the safety of the country\u2019s small but growing Jewish community.<\/p>\n The U.A.E.\u2019s state news agency, WAM, reported<\/a> that the Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeals\u2019 State Security Chamber decided on the death penalty for the \u201cpremeditated murder with terrorist intention\u201d of Rabbi Zvi Kogan.<\/p>\n A fourth person was sentenced for aiding in the crime \u2014 in what way the government did not say \u2014 to a prison term, followed by deportation from the country. The defendant was sentenced to life in prison, but typically that means being released after 20 years or more.<\/p>\n The authorities did not disclose the identities of those sentenced, but the U.A.E. Interior Ministry previously identified<\/a> three people accused of murder as Olimboy Tohirovich and Makhmudjon Abdurakhim, both 28, and Azizbek Kamilovich, 33, all Uzbek nationals. State media released photos of them, blindfolded and shackled at the wrists and ankles, after their extradition from Turkey<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe defendants had tracked and murdered the victim,\u201d WAM said in its report on Monday. \u201cThe evidence presented by the State Security Prosecution to the court included the defendants\u2019 detailed confessions to the crimes of murder and kidnapping, along with forensic reports, post-mortem examination findings, details of the instruments used in the crime and witness testimonies.\u201d<\/p>\n The report did not quote the authorities offering a motive for the murder of Rabbi Kogan, 28, or any further details about how he was kidnapped and later killed.<\/p>\n The rabbi disappeared on Nov. 21 and was last reported seen in Dubai, the most populous of the nation\u2019s seven emirates, according to an Israeli official who spoke to The New York Times at the time. Israeli news outlets reported that his car had been found abandoned in Al Ain, a city in the adjacent emirate of Abu Dhabi, on the border with Oman. His body was found three days later.<\/p>\n The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel denounced the killing at the time as an \u201cantisemitic terrorist act.\u201d<\/p>\n Rabbi Kogan was a dual citizen of Israel and Moldova and had worked in the Emirates<\/a> as part of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a Hasidic branch of Orthodox Judaism that conducts Jewish outreach around the world. He also helped manage the Rimon kosher supermarket in Dubai\u2019s affluent Al Wasl Road neighborhood. This month, the supermarket announced that it was moving and would accept only delivery orders for the time being.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Israeli embassy and consulate in the Emirates did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the sentences.<\/p>\n The kidnapping and killing of the rabbi rattled the small Jewish population<\/a> of the Emirates; estimates of its number ranges from hundreds to a few thousand. More Israelis and Jews have made the Emirates their home since the country formally established ties with Israel<\/a> in the 2020 Abraham Accords.<\/p>\n Emirati authorities said on Monday that the capital sentences \u201care automatically subject to appeal\u201d to the criminal division of the Federal Supreme Court. Cases of capital punishment are rare in the Emirates, but executions are carried out promptly after defendants exhaust their appeals.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n