Manama: A Bahraini court has sentenced five suspects to life in jail for smuggling and possession of explosives intended to be used in terror attacks.
The case came in the open in March last year when officers on the King Fahad Causeway linking Bahrain and Saudi Arabia searched a bag on a bus coming from Iraq and found the explosives.
An investigation launched by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) revealed that the first suspect, the bus driver who had made several trips to Iraq, and the fifth suspect, a fugitive living in Iraq, had agreed to use a young suspect to smuggle the explosives into Bahrain by placing them in his bag. They believed that his young age would allow him to avoid the suspicion of the customs officers.
Under instructions from the fifth suspect, the first suspect was to receive the bag from the young suspect after he passes through the King Fahad Causeway customs, and hand it over to other people.
Investigations also revealed that a second suspect had smuggled explosives from Iraq aboard the same bus and that a third suspect had also smuggled explosives in coordination with the fifth suspect and had received explosives that had been smuggled from the fourth suspect.
Several items, including detonators, mobile phones, electricals and mobile SIM chips, were seized in a place used to make bombs.
The suspects who were aware of the extent of their actions and helped in the smuggling operations were arrested according to legal procedures and referred to the Public Prosecution, Chief of Anti-terror Crime Prosecution and Acting Advocate General Hamad Al Buainain said.
In proving the charges against the suspects, the Public Prosecution relied upon oral statements including the statements of prosecution witnesses, and confessions by the suspects and technical evidence, he added.
Under Bahrain’s laws, the suspects have the right to challenge the sentence before the Court of Appeal and eventually at the Court of Cassation.
