Dubai police chief: "Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood linked to an alleged plot to topple the UAE government."

Dubai police chief: "Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood linked to an alleged plot to topple the UAE government."(JPost).DUBAI - Sunni Muslim-ruled Gulf Arab states are often wary of subversion from their powerful Shi'ite neighbor Iran, but Dubai's veteran police chief reserves most of his wrath for the "dictators" of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Dhahi Khalfan's suspicions focus mostly on the Egyptian branch of the Sunni Islamist organization, propelled to power in the most populous Arab country in elections since the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in a popular uprising in 2011.

"The Brotherhood as a ruling party in Egypt has no right to interfere with other countries. They are no longer a political party and should respect the independence of other countries," Khalfan told Reuters in an interview this week.

He reiterated charges that Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood was linked to an alleged plot to topple the UAE government, saying the group's ultimate goal was Islamist rule in all Gulf states.

His stance testifies to new tensions in the Arab world arising from two years of popular ferment that has unseated autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, although it has so far spared US-allied dynasties in the Gulf and elsewhere.

Khalfan, one of the Gulf's longest serving security officials, defended a trial of the 94 alleged Emirati plotters that human rights groups have criticized as unfair.

"These are dictators," he said of the Brotherhood, which is banned in the UAE, a wealthy, politically stable federation of seven emirates including free-wheeling global trade hub Dubai.

"They want to change regimes that have been ruling for a long time, but they also want to rule forever...We have evidence this group was planning to overthrow rulers in the Gulf region."

He said the defendants, who include lawyers, teachers, judges and a member of the ruling family of one of the emirates, had reached an advanced stage in their alleged conspiracy.

"The UAE...acted at the right time to stop the Muslim Brotherhood plan that is being directed by the Murshid," Khalfan said, referring to Egypt's Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie.

The Brotherhood in Egypt, one of whose members, Mohamed Morsi, was elected head of state in June, rejected Khalfan's accusations that the group was involved in subversion abroad.

"We do not act outside the law in any country. We guard the preservation of the law," Brotherhood spokesman Ahmed Aref said. "He (Khalfan) has no evidence of this, of any conspiracy."

Asked about neighboring Qatar's close ties to the Brotherhood, Khalfan said the UAE respected the Qatari leadership, even if the two countries had differing views.Read the full story here.