Manama: A court in Bahrain has sentenced 12 people to life in prison and revoked their citizenship for their role in a spate of bombings.
Advocate General Ahmad Al Hammadi said the High Criminal Court tried the suspects on charges of attempted murder, acquiring and using high-grade explosives against policemen and civilians, arson, illegal assembly and rioting.
Evidence presented by the Public Prosecution during the trial revealed that investigations had directly linked the defendants to six bombings that targeted policemen, he said.
The attacks were carried out in 2013 and 2014 in and around Daih village, in the western suburbs of the capital Manama.
Al Hammadi said the Public Prosecution had filed formal charges against the suspects based on evidence gathered during investigations, including fingerprints that directly matched five of the suspects to explosives and bomb-making materials found in a house in Saar, a village to the west of Manama, as well as on the suspects’ confessions and witnesses’ statements.
The Advocate General added the court sentenced two other suspects on trial for similar terror-related charges to one year in jail each, with orders that both be deported after serving their terms.
Al Hammadi in a statement carried by Bahrain News Agency (BNA) said that all the defendants “were provided ample time to meet with their legal defence teams to prepare their case, and stood trial in the High Criminal Court in the presence of their lawyers.”
He added that “the suspects had the full and legal right to challenge the rulings through the Court of Appeals.”
