Bahrain Mirror: Bahrain's Fourth High Criminal Court, presided over by judge Ali bin Khalifa Al-Dhahrani, with the membership of judges Hamad bin Salman Al Khalifa and Jamal Awad, and Ahmad Al-Sulaiman as secretariat, sentenced an accused (21 years old) to 10 years in prison over hiding a bomb in the washroom of a mosque in the Bahraini village of Al-Maqsha and ordered the confiscation of the seized bomb.

The Public Prosecution stated that the accused, on February 22, 2015, in the Northern Governorate, along with other unknown suspects, illegally acquired a bomb and materials used for detonation, aiming at using it in an act that disrupts security and public order for a terrorist purpose.

The authorities claimed that the suspect (pending investigation over another case) told them during his confession about the location of the bomb, inside the Abdulimam Mosque in Al-Maqsha. A mobile phone connected to electric wires, a gas mask, glass box containing iron balls, a number of flash memories and SIM cards were found in his car. A week prior to February 14, a member in a group on Blackberry told him to receive something that he left for him in specific location in the village. The suspect headed towards the said place to find a cardboard box including a bomb and two mobile phones. He then returned to contact the group that told him to detonate it at the entrance of the village on February 14, 2015, so he hid it in the washroom of a mosque and kept the phones in his car.

Human rights organizations; however, challenge the charges raised against the suspects 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 Issue