Bahrain sentences eight people to life for policeman bomb death

MANAMA — Bahrain’s supreme criminal Court has sentenced eight people to life in prison for their part in the killing of a policeman in a bomb blast in November, the prosecutor’s office said on Sunday.

The Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab kingdom and host of the US Fifth Fleet has struggled with unrest since mass pro-democracy protests, led by the majority Shiite population but also included some Sunnis, erupted in 2011.

The protests were put down by the authorities but since then more radical Shiites have carried out low-level violence against security forces on an almost daily basis. Recent months have seen a rise in the use of homemade bombs.

The prosecutor’s office said the eight men planted a homemade bomb close to where police usually erected a checkpoint during protests, before setting tyres on fire and blocking the road to lure police to the site.

One policeman was killed and four others were injured in the resulting blast, the prosecutor said.

Bahrain’s main opposition group, Al Wefaq, said on its website that detainees were regularly subjected to torture and forced to make confessions, and that the courts were ignoring human rights violations committed by the security forces.

The Bahrain government says it has taken steps to address security forces’ violations by dismissing those responsible and introducing cameras at police stations to monitor abuses. But activists say this has not helped.