Terror case verdicts upheld

Manama, Feb. 27 (BNA): The High Criminal Court of Appeal upheld the verdicts convicting ten defendants of murder, attempted murder for a terrorist purpose, joining a terrorist group they had formed, hiding fugitives, plotting a terrorist attack and possessing explosives. The fourth High Criminal Court issued a verdict on June 5 2017, sentencing two defendants to death, three to life imprisonment and three others to ten years in jail, said the Chief of Terror Crime Prosecution, Advocate General Ahmed Al Hammadi. The court also sentenced one defendant to seven years in jail, another to five years and two others to three years in prison each and acquitted one defendant. The fourth High Criminal Court revoked the nationality of nine convicts and ordered seven convicts to pay together BD25,416 and BD3,300 in compensation for damaging a police patrol and a privately-owned truck respectively. The Capital Police Directorate notified the Public Prosecution on April 16, 2016, about an arson attack which targeted an on-duty police patrol with firebombs, leaving the driver dead and two other policemen wounded. Investigation revealed that a terrorist group ambushed a Public Security patrol, prepared gasoline and Molotov cocktail bombs, monitored the route of the police patrol in Karbabad and laid the ambush. The terrorist assailants attacked the patrol as soon as it reached the ambush, poured gasoline on the vehicle with the policemen inside. A policeman burned to death in the attack and two others sustained burns. The Public Prosecution referred 11 defendants to stand trial at the fourth High Criminal Court and issued arrest warrants for two other fugitives who remained at large. The fourth High Criminal Court examined the case, in the presence of the lawyers of the defendants who were granted all legal guarantees, before issuing its verdicts, which were upheld today by the High Criminal Court of Appeal.