Bahrain executes three men in two separate cases

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.

Rights groups identified two of the men as Shi’ite activists Ali al-Arab and Ahmed al-Malali, who were sentenced to death last year in a mass trial along with another 56 men convicted and given jail terms on “terrorism crimes”.

The court jailed 19 for life and 37 for terms of up to 15 years, alleging they were part of a terrorist cell trained to use heavy weapons and explosives.

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 what it called Iran-based ringleaders.

The third executed man was convicted of killing an imam in 2018.

Bahrain accuses mainly Shi’ite Iran of stoking militancy in the kingdom, which Tehran denies. Bahrain, a strategic island where the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based, has a Shi’ite Muslim majority population but is ruled by a Sunni royal family.