High Appeals Court upholds sentences

The High Appeals Court today issued its verdict accepting the appeal in form and rejecting it in substance by upholding the sentences issued by the High Criminal Court against eight defendants.
The defendants were charged and convicted of establishing intelligence connections with a foreign country, illegal possession, handling and detonation of explosives and firearms and creating a blast and deliberately murdering a woman, subjecting public and private transport to danger as well as trained on the unlicensed use of firearms and explosives for the purpose of committing terrorist crimes with accomplices, concealing a fugitive and inflicting property damage during their implementing their terrorist purposes.

On 19 June 2016, the High Criminal Court sentenced the first defendant to death penalty and the second defendant to life in jail term, and three years’ incarceration against seven defendants, the first and second defendant were stripped from the citizenship and obliged both of them to pay the value of damages, fined the third defendant and confiscating the seized materials.

The case dates back to 30 June 2016 when the defendants planted and detonated an explosive device on Shaikh Jaber Al Ahmad Al Sabah Street and deliberately killed a Bahraini woman and injured her accompanying children.

Investigations led to the culprits, including a fugitive who is currently in Iran working in the interest of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who tasked two defendants who carried out the crime to detonate the explosive device that targeted police patrols in a bid to kill them. He furnished both defendants with the explosive device. After monitoring police movement in the area, the two defendants planted the explosive device in place to implement their plot. They subsequently detonated the explosive device and the blast killed the victim who happened to be driving her car at the time and place of the incident. The women was killed and the children who were accompanying her inside the car were injured.

The first suspect escaped after implementing the crime. He was sheltered and concealed by several suspects. The suspects were arrested in compliance with the legally prescribed procedures and referred to the Prosecution.

Ten suspects were referred by the Prosecution, including eight defendants who were in custody, to the High Criminal Court. Legal order was issued to arrest the fugitive suspect. The case was deliberated by the court. The court listened to their defence pleas. The Public Prosecution insisted the court issues maximum penalty against the defendants. The court issued its above sentence which is upheld by the High Court of Appeal during its session today.

Source: BNA