Bahrain sentences two to death over 2015 bomb attack

A Bahraini court on Wednesday sentenced two citizens to death over a 2015 bomb attack that killed two police officers and wounded six others, the public prosecutor said.

The High Criminal Court also sentenced five other people to life in jail and 15 more to prison terms ranging from six months to 10 years, while two more were cleared, the prosecutor said in a statement.

Authorities in the Western-allied kingdom are cracking down on dissent by arresting activists, banning the main Shi’ite opposition al-Wefaq group and taking steps to dissolve a secular association.

Bahrain had been hit by occasional unrest since authorities crushed 2011 protests, mainly by the Shi’ite majority demanding a bigger share in running the country.

The al-Wasat newspaper identified the two men sentenced to death as Mohammed Ibrahim Al-Touq and Mohammed Qadhi Abdullah.

They had been named in an August 2015 report by state news agency BNA as having been among a group detained in connection with an explosion the previous month outside a girls school in Sitra village, east of the capital Manama, that killed two policemen and wounded six.

The court also revoked the citizenship of eight members of the group and ordered seven others to pay BD6,640 ($17,616)to cover damages caused by the blast. The rulings are subject to appeal.

Bahrain in January executed three Shi’ite men convicted of killing three policemen, including an officer from the United Arab Emirates, in a 2014 bomb attack. They were the first such executions in over two decades and led to protests in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.