Bahrain Mirror: Bahrain's Fifth High Criminal Court, presided over by judge Abdullah Al-Ashraf with the memberships of judges Mohsen Mabrouk and Motaz Abu Al-Ezz and Abdullah Mohammad as secretariat, revoked the citizenships of five defendants, sentencing the first and second to 15 years in prison and fining them 100,000 BD each over charges of joining a terrorist group, while sentencing the remaining suspects to 5 year imprisonment.

The court stated that the second suspect confessed during interrogation to the charges raised against him and to transferring seven shotguns and funding the Feb 14 Coalition based on directions he received through phone calls. The fourth suspect; however, confessed to printing items for the aforementioned group upon the request of the first suspect and said that the second suspect paid for the printed items more than once.

The Central Bank of Bahrain documents proved that the sums the second suspect exchanged from Saudi riyals to Bahraini dinars amounted to 139.765.765.

Human rights organizations challenge the charges raised against the defendants, since they doubt the independence of the judiciary, whose members are assigned by royal decrees, and since it issues sentences based on confessions extracted under duress and evidence presented by secret investigations and anonymous witnesses.

Arabic Version