(CNN) — An American imprisoned in the United Arab Emirates after posting a video that parodied Dubai teens will be released this week, a family spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Shezanne Cassim, the American jailed in the United Arab Emirates after posting a video parody, was sentenced Monday to one year in prison and a fine of 10,000 UAE dirhams (approximately $2,700).
Shezanne Cassim plans to fly back to the United States on Thursday, family spokeswoman Jennifer Gore said. There was no immediate response to the family’s announcement from the UAE government, which has not replied to previous requests for comment on Cassim’s case.
Cassim, 29, from Woodbury, Minnesota, moved to Dubai in 2006 after graduating from college to work for PricewaterhouseCoopers. His family says the 29-year-old was arrested in April after uploading a 19-minute video that pokes fun at a clique of Dubai teens influenced by hip-hop culture.
In December, he was sentenced to a year in prison and a fine of about $2,700. The charges were not read in court, but the country’s main English-language newspaper reported that Cassim was accused of defaming the UAE’s image abroad. UAE officials would only say that Cassim “was charged under the UAE’s penal code,” and was “entitled to the fair trial protections contained in the UAE’s constitution.”
In the 1990s, the label “Satwa G” was coined for a group of suburban teens who were known to talk tougher than they really were. Cassim’s video depicts a look at a “combat school” in the Dubai district of Satwa, where these “gangsters” are trained. The training includes how to throw sandals at targets, use clothing accessories as whips, and how to call on the phone for backup.
Cassim’s family said they weren’t notified of the charges against him for five months.
“He tries to put on a brave face,” his brother, Shervon Cassim, told CNN in December. “He said that he was doing fine, not to worry about him, but I could just sense that he’s a little depressed — my impression is that he’s going just a little bit crazy in his cell.”
Shervon Cassim said his brother made the video “just for fun.”
“He’s a big fan of ‘SNL,’ ‘Funny or Die,’ all those shows, and he and his friends just wanted to make a funny sketch comedy in their spare time,” Shervon Cassim said. “There was no indication in local law that making a comedy video, making fun of teenagers in the suburbs, was a threat to the UAE’s national security.”
CNN Correspondent Sara Sidner contributed to this report.
