Bahrain Mirror: Bahrain's Fourth High Criminal Court presided over judge Ali bin Khalifa Al-Dhahrani sentenced on Tuesday (February 9, 2016) four Bahrainis, between the ages of 20 and 25 years, to 10 years in prison over charges of assembly and assault against Al-Khamis Police Station and ordered them to jointly pay a sum of 300 Bahraini dinars worth of damages caused to the station.

The authorities claimed that they received a notice from Al-Khamis police station reporting that about 30 people staged a protest in Tashan, alleging that "they hurled Molotov cocktails at policemen attempting murder and at damaging of public property. The attack led to damages in the outer fence of the station, a military patrol vehicle and one of the policemen's private car."

The Ministry of Interior said that its investigations and confidential sources led it to identifying 3 suspects.

The Public Prosecution accused the first three suspects of deliberately setting fire on June 29, 2015 to public property and thus endangering the people's lives and properties for a terrorist aim and sabotaging Ministry of Interior property. The prosecution also accused the defendants of participating in a gathering of more than five persons, aiming at disrupting public security for terrorist aim and having possession of Molotov cocktails. The prosecution accused the fourth suspect; however, of participating and helping the suspects and unknown others to commit the aforementioned crimes and providing them with the required equipment.

Since 2012, the known riot cases which are listed under the riot act have been amended to apply to the terrorism act, as new terrorist aims and pretexts have been attributed to these cases, such as the attempted murder of policemen, breaching the provisions of law and putting people's lives and properties in danger, in order to harshen the sentences issued against protestors and activists.

Arabic Issue