(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Washington has called upon the government of Bahrain to release the Shia opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman, who was arrested in 2014.
Although Salman was sentenced to four years in prison at the time, this was later increased to nine years.
The US call came hours after the Shia leader was acquitted by a Bahraini court on Thursday of “carrying out hostile acts inside the kingdom and receiving money from a foreign state in return for passing military secrets.”
According to Shaikh Maytham Salman of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, “Shaikh Ali Salman was acquitted of the charges for which he had been detained since last November.”
According to several Bahraini activists, two of Sheikh Salman’s colleagues, Hassan Sultan and Ali al-Aswad, have also been cleared of the espionage charges against them.
Sheikh Salman, however, will remain in jail, serving a prison term for inciting hatred handed down in 2014.
On November 1, 2017, the 52-year-old secretary general of the dissolved al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, Hassan Sultan and Ali al-Aswad were charged with “spying on behalf of a foreign country... with the aim of carrying out subversive acts against Bahrain and harming its national interests.”
Sheikh Salman was also charged with “revealing defense secrets to a foreign country and disseminating information that would harm Bahrain’s status and reputation.”
The senior Bahraini Shia cleric has been in jail on a nine-year prison sentence since late 2014 for what the Manama regime has called “insulting” government officials, “inciting” unrest through his speeches targeting the authorities during the 2011 uprising, attempting to overthrow the regime and collaborating with foreign powers.
Sheikh Salman denies all the charges, saying he has merely been seeking reforms in the country through peaceful means.
Amnesty International and other human rights groups had censured his arrest and called for his release.
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