2 Sentenced to Death in Bahrain

A Bahraini court has sentenced two Shia Muslims to death and jailed 56 others on charges of “terrorism”, prosecutors in the Persian Gulf kingdom have said. The supreme criminal court also stripped 47 of the defendants of their Bahraini citizenship at Wednesday’s mass trial, accusing them of “forming a terrorist group” to carry out “murders” and “attacks” against police officers, a statement on the state news agency BNA said, Al Jazeera reported. According to the public prosecution, some of the defendants were also charged with training to use weapons and possessing bombs. Of the 60 Bahrainis who were prosecuted at the closed-door hearing, 19 were sentenced to life in prison, 17 were given 15 years, 9 were handed 10 years and 11 were given 5 years. Only two were acquitted, it said. Human rights groups have accused Bahrain of clamping down on dissent and violently cracking down on protests.