Bahrain court jails 26 over attacks on police

MANAMA: A Bahraini court on Thursday issued sentences of up to life in prison for 26 convicts over the attempted murder of policemen.

Twenty of the defendants were jailed for life, while the rest were each handed 15-year prison terms by Bahrain’s Supreme Criminal Court, headed by judges Ibrahim Al-Zayed and Youssef Buhardan.

The 14th defendant, a Gulf citizen, was sentenced to be expelled after serving his life sentence.

They were found guilty of forming a “terrorist group” between 2011 and 2013, possession of weapons and Molotov cocktails, and attempting to kill policemen in the village of Diraz, west of Manama.

In another case, a court in Manama jailed a Bahraini for 10 years and revoked his citizenship for joining a terrorist group, a public prosecution statement said.

The suspect stood trial over charges of joining Daesh, possessing a firearm illegally for terrorist purposes and disseminating false news, said Ahmed Al-Hammadi, Bahrain’s advocate general and head of the Terror Crimes Prosecution, reported the Bahrain News Agency (BNA).

The suspect was in charge of liaising between the Daesh branch in Bahrain and its militants abroad.

He used social media networks to publish and exchange information about Daesh, which accuses Bahrain’s ruling system and state institutions of apostasy, and calls for their overthrow and the killing of those in charge of them.

Al-Hammadi said the defendant was afforded full legal rights, and has the right to appeal the ruling.

The public prosecution leveled the charges against the suspect based on testimonies from witnesses, his confessions and technical reports.