A Bahraini court sentenced 10 men to life imprisonment on charges of forming terrorist cell and plotting attacks, the Bahraini Public Prosecution said on Tuesday.
The citizenship of the 10 men was revoked.
The men were accused of receiving training in military camps in Iran and Iraq with the use of arms and bombs to carry out terrorist attacks in Bahrain, the prosecution said in a statement.
Bahrain, a small island state linked to Saudi Arabia by a 25 km (15 mile) causeway, is strategically important to the West as it hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet.
It has a Shi‘ite Muslim majority population but ruled by a Sunni royal family.
The government, citing years of deadly bombings and shooting attacks against its security forces, said it faced militant threats backed by arch-foe Iran.
Bahrain’s Public Prosecution said it sentenced 19 unnamed defendants to prison terms for contacts with a banned party it said was backed by Iran and involved in militant attacks.
Meanwhile, critics had accused Bahrain of clamping down on dissent, a charge the government denied. (Reuters/NAN)
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