AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Manama’s top court upheld a November ruling on Monday that condemned Bahrain’s opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman to life imprisonment.
The latest verdict by the Court of Cassation comes despite criticism from the United Nations, which labeled Sheikh Salman’s sentence as “a breach of his fundamental human rights.”
Two other defendants in the case Hassan Ali Juma Sultan and Ali Mahdi Ali Al-Aswad – leading Bahraini opposition figures that were tried in absentia – also had their life sentence upheld.
The charges, widely dismissed as politically motivated, stemmed from an open and well-documented mediation attempt during Bahrain’s 2011 pro-democracy protests that resulted in preliminary communications between the regime in Manama, the Bahraini opposition and Qatar.
Sheikh Salman was jailed in December 2014 and initially sentenced to four years in prison for “inciting disobedience and hatred”.
But since Bahrain joined Saudi Arabia and the UAE in imposing a blockade on Qatar, rights groups have accused Manama of using the row to intensify its clampdown on regime critics.
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source : Lualua TV
Monday
28 January 2019
12:10:59 PM
926707
Manama’s top court upheld a November ruling on Monday that condemned Bahrain’s opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman to life imprisonment.