Dubai: Bahrain’s Terror Crime Prosecution Advocate General said that a former lawmaker was involved in funding the terror cell that on July 28 blasted a bus in Sitra and killed two policemen.
Ahmad Al Hammadi said the public prosecution had launched an investigation into the deadly attack and that the probe revealed that a suspect, a member of a political society arrested last week, had collected money from Bahrain and abroad to fund terrorist groups, including the group implicated in the Sitra blast.
“The defendant was arrested and the Public Prosecution started questioning him on August 23,” the Advocate General said. “Like the other suspects, he was informed about his rights and legal guarantees. He admitted providing money to some suspects almost regularly despite knowing that they were wanted by the security authorities,” Al Hammadi said, Bahrain News Agency (BNA) reported.
Ex-MP from Al Wefaq Society Hassan Eisa Marzooq was arrested on August 18 upon his return from Iran on charge of collecting funds and giving them to terrorists.
The lawmaker was elected in 2010 alongside 17 candidates from Al Wefaq.
However, the bloc resigned in February the next year as dramatic events unfolded in the country and led to a political crisis.
Al Wefaq refused to take part in the parliamentary by-elections held later in the year.
Referring to the bus blast case, Al Hammadi said the search and investigation, conducted by the police at the request of the Public Prosecution, led to the identification of the persons who committed the crime.
“Investigations revealed that they formed a terror group which plotted to target security forces and kill policemen,” he said. “The suspects monitored the movements of the police patrols and agreed to blow up the police bus through planting an explosive device on its way. They received the bomb through an Iran-based defendant and through some persons linked to him in Bahrain, and used it to carry out their crime for terrorist purposes, investigations also showed. It also proved that one suspect had been trained in Iraq on making and using weapons and explosives, in coordination with some defendants both in Bahrain and abroad.”
Five members of the group were arrested and the place where they used to meet and hide their weapons and explosives was searched, the Advocate General said, adding that a ready-to-use bomb, a remote detonator and two home-made weapons were seized.
“The Public Prosecution questioned the defendants within the guarantors prescribed by the law, including the presence of a lawyer with one of them. It charged them with murder, attempted premeditated murder and the establishment of a terror group and joining it. It also accused them of carrying out an explosion for terrorist purposes, training on the use of weapons and explosives, as well as possessing weapons and explosive and making Molotov cocktails,” he said.
