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, sentenced a suspect to 15 years in prison and another to 7, over charges of planting and detonating a bomb under a minibus near the Al-Budaiya police station, and fined them a sum of 809 BD as a compensation for the damages, caused by the explosion.

The Public Prosecution accused the first defendant of acquiring and manufacturing explosives in 2014, along with other unknown suspects, for terrorist purposes, and also detonating explosives for a terrorist purpose, endangering people's lives and causing material damage.

The prosecution also accused the second defendant of training the first defendant on the use of explosives for the purpose of committing terrorist acts.

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