Bahrain executes three, including Shiite terrorists
Bahrain executed on Saturday three men convicted in two separate cases, one involving the killing of a police officer and the other the killing of a mosque imam, the public prosecutor said in a statement.
Two of the men, reportedly Iranian-backed Shiite terrorists Ali al-Arab and Ahmed al-Malali, were sentenced to death last year in a mass trial along with another 56 men convicted and given jail terms on “terrorism crimes.”
The men were part of a terrorist cell trained to use heavy weapons and explosives. The court jailed 19 of them for life and the other 37 for terms of up to 15 years.
The prosecutor’s statement, which did not identify any of the men, said two of them were convicted for crimes including using an assault rifle to kill a police officer in 2017, in attacks orchestrated by Iran-based ringleaders.
Bahrain accuses mainly Shiite Iran of stoking militancy in the kingdom, which Tehran denies. Bahrain, a strategic island where the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based, has a Shiite majority population but is ruled by a Sunni royal family.
The authorities have said they are protecting national security from terrorists.
Bahrain has tried many members of the Shiite opposition following a failed uprising in 2011. Many others have escaped abroad.
The third executed man was convicted of killing an imam in 2018.
Meanwhile, in London, a protester was arrested for trespassing on a diplomatic premises late on Friday after climbing on to the roof of Bahrain’s embassy, British police said.
A video posted on YouTube showed the intruder unfurling a banner calling on new British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to intervene to stop the executions. It also showed emergency service officials breaking open the door of the embassy to gain access.
