Abdul Rahman Yusuf Al-Qaradawi pardoned by UAE

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed has pardoned Abdul Rahman Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the son of the late Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the United Arab Emirates' official WAM news agency said Friday.

Qaradawi, an Egyptian opposition activist and poet, was extradited from Lebanon in January 2025 and sentenced last week by the Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal to 10 years in prison and a fine.

WAM said when he arrived in the UAE that he faced charges of “activities that aim to stir and undermine public security.”

Qaradawi was arrested in Lebanon in late 2024 after crossing from Syria. Lebanese authorities said at the time that the arrest was linked to an Egyptian ruling sentencing him to five years in jail on charges of “opposing the state and inciting terrorism.”

Egypt and the UAE both requested his extradition from Lebanon, according to a Lebanese judicial official. The Muslim Brotherhood is blacklisted as a “terrorist group” in Egypt and the UAE.

The UAE is a strong opponent of the Muslim Brotherhood and its political Islam. Abdul Rahman al-Qaradawi was a political organiser against the government of longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled in 2011.

His father, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, was imprisoned several times in Egypt over his links to the Muslim Brotherhood and died in 2022 after decades in exile in Qatar.