Bahrain Mirror: Bahraini high Appeal Court, presided over by judge Mohammad bin Ali Al Khalifa and Naji Abdullah as secretariat, upheld a first degree verdict sentencing 3 appellants to 10-year prison term over burning lightening boxes owned by the Electricity and Water Authority.

The authorities claim that they received on May 23, 2013 a notice stating that a lightening box was set to fire in Hamad Town Roundabout 17. The camera showed 3 people fleeing away after committing the crime. The security forces and civil defence extinguished the fire.

The authorities say that they reached the first and second suspects who confessed "committing the crime". The first suspect confessed that he planned with the two other suspects to set lightening box to fire in Hamad Town.   

Human rights organizations challenge the charges raised against political detainees, 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