The United Arab Emirates on Monday sentenced three people to death for the murder of Chabad Rabbi Zvi Kogan, an Israeli-Moldovan citizen who was killed in November in the Gulf country, state news agency WAM reported, confirming reports in Israeli media from the previous day.

The Abu Dhabi Federal Appeal Court ruled that the murder of Kogan, 28, was committed by the defendants in pursuance of a “terrorist purpose,” according to WAM.

Kogan, who had been living in the UAE, was a representative of Chabad, an Orthodox Jewish group that has chapters around the world and seeks to build connections with non-affiliated and secular Jews.

Three of the defendants were found guilty of Kogan’s murder, while a fourth defendant was sentenced to life in prison in conjunction with the killing. Death penalty sentences are automatically subject to appeal under Emirati law, the report noted.

Evidence presented in court included “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,” WAM reported.

According to Israeli reports on Sunday, citing sources in the Gulf state, the three men sentenced to death were all Uzbek nationals. The UAE had already confirmed the identities of the three murder suspects — Olimpi Toirovich, Makhmudjon Abdurakhim, and Azizbek Kamlovich — as Uzbek nationals.

The UAE’s attorney general, following the verdict, stressed the country’s commitment to fighting terrorism and to protecting all residents, regardless of their religion or ethnicity, WAM said.

Kogan went missing in Dubai in November 2024. His body was found a few days later, in the Emirati city of Al Ain, which borders Oman.

In December, The Wall Street Journal reported that the killers had kidnapped Kogan and planned to take him to neighboring Oman. The report said the three suspects were driving the rabbi toward the border until their plan was somehow disrupted.

Kogan worked to expand Jewish life in the UAE following the historic Abraham Accords that forged diplomatic relations between Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi, including ensuring the wide availability of kosher food and opening the first Jewish education center in the country.

The UAE’s Israeli and Jewish community has grown more visible since 2020, when the UAE became the most prominent Arab state in 30 years to establish formal ties with Israel under a US-brokered agreement dubbed the Abraham Accords.

The UAE has maintained the relationship during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. However, Israelis and Jews have been less evident in public since the Hamas attack on Israeli communities of October 7, 2023 — when thousands of terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages — which triggered the Gaza war.

There are no official statistics on the number of Jews or Israelis living in the UAE. Jewish groups estimate that there are several thousand.