Bahrain Mirror: The High Criminal Court, presided over by Judge Ibrahim Al-Zayed, with the membership of Judges Mohsen Mabrouk and Moataz Abu A-Ezz and Yousef Bu Hardan as secretariat, adjourned the case of 138 defendants until January 11 to listen to the attesting witness. The defendants were accused of establishing and joining the "Zulfiqar Brigades", collaborating with Iran's Revolutionary Guards, blasting 19 bomb attacks and planting hoax bombs in several areas across Bahrain.

The Public Prosecution raised a number of charges against the defendants. It accused the first three defendants of forming a terrorist group from 2013 to 2016, and leading it for the purpose of calling for disobedience of the law and constitution, preventing the government from performing its duties and harming national unity. The prosecution further said that Terrorism was used to accomplish this aim and the defendants recruited a number of persons as member in the group to target security servicemen.

The remaining 135 defendants, along with other unknown suspects, face a number of charges regarding incidents of setting hoax bombs, and planting explosives in some areas, attempted murder of policeman, possession of firearms, and damaging Works Ministry property, as well as 7 civilian vehicles.

A number of defendants also face charges of receiving training on the use of weapons and explosives in Iranian Revolutionary Guard camps and Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades, and communicating with Revolutionary Guard members to commit bomb attacks in Bahrain.

The Public Prosecution had announced that it concluded its investigations in the case of establishing "Zulfiqar Brigades" and referred 138 defendants to court; 86 of whom were imprisoned and 52 were fugitives, whom the authorities could not arrest.

The security forces arrested a large number of citizens at the onset of November 2015 and referred them to the Public Prosecution on November 25. The Prosecution, for its part, investigated the case for 10 months and recently referred the suspects to trial.

Many of the defendants complained to their families about being severely tortured by the security forces who used torture to extract confessions, which were used to refer the suspects to the prosecution.

Arabic Version