Opposition chief gets life in jail in Bahrain
Bahrain sentenced the head of the country's Shia opposition movement to life in prison yesterday for spying for rival Gulf state Qatar in a ruling rights groups have called a travesty.
Sheikh Ali Salman, who headed the now-banned Al-Wefaq movement, and two of his aides had been acquitted by the high criminal court in June, a verdict the public prosecution appealed.
The public prosecutor said in a statement that the three had been unanimously sentenced by the appeals court for "acts of hostility" against Bahrain and "communicating with Qatari officials... to overthrow constitutional order".
Yesterday's verdict against the charismatic Shia cleric can still be appealed.
Ruled for more than two centuries by the Sunni Al-Khalifa dynasty, Bahrain has been hit by waves of unrest since 2011, when security forces crushed Shia-led protests demanding a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister.
Opposition movements, both religious and secular, have been outlawed since 2011 and hundreds of dissidents imprisoned -- many of them stripped of their citizenship in the process.
Amnesty and HRW categorise Salman and other jailed opposition leaders prisoners of conscience.
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