Gulf News Report
Dubai: Bahrain’s Court of Appeal upheld a decision to revoke the nationality of eight defendants accused of establishing a branch of Daesh in Bahrain, press reports said.
The Appeals court also reduced the prison sentences from 15 to eight years, a report by the Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper Al Sharq Al Awsat said.
Aged between 16 and 42 years old, the defendants were charged in October last year with forming a cell of Daesh, plotting suicide attacks and recruiting militants for the terror group. The defendants were said to have been planning to carry out a suicide bombing in a local mosque.
The mastermind of the Bahraini Daesh cell was Turki Al Binali, who is believed to have recruited dozens of Bahraini youth and sent them to the frontlines outside the country. The suspects also include two of Binali’s brothers (the second and third defendants), the paper said.
Al Binali was quoted as telling the court he is “proud of joining Daesh”. He was charged with establishing a branch for a terrorist organisation intended to disable the provisions of the Constitution and prevent state institutions and public authorities from exercising their business by means of terror”.
