Bahrain Mirror: The Supreme Court of Appeals presided over by judge Mohammad bin Ali Al Khalifa and Naji Abdullah as secretariat rejected the objection of 3 appellants and upheld their 7-year jail term.

The first-instance court had sentenced the suspects in absentia to 10 years in prison. The suspects then appealed the verdict and thus their sentence was reduced to 7 years. However, they objected the ruling and did not show up before the appeals court that decided to reject the objection of 3 appellants.

The first-instance court had sentenced 10 defendants to 10 years in prison over attacking policemen near Sitra post office with Molotov, injuring a sergeant and damaging a police patrol he was in.

The Public Prosecution claim that on March 16, 2015, the 10 suspects, along with other unknowns, attacked the bodily integrity of a sergeant while performing his job, noting that the attack did not hinder him from performing his personal works for more than 20 days and deliberately damaged, along with other unknowns, a vehicle owned by the ministry of interior, for a terrorist aim. The prosecution also accused them of taking part in an assembly of more than 5 persons, indicating that the suspects used violence to achieve the aim they gathered for, and acquiring Molotov aiming at intimidating residents to achieve a terrorist aim.

Since 2012, riot cases that go under the demonstrations and riot section of the penal code were adapted to apply to the terrorism law, if there were "terrorist" purposes behind them, such as attempted murder of a police officer, violating the provisions of law and endangering the lives of people and their properties, within the regime's framework of harshening penalties against protesters and activists.

Arabic Version