Bahrain Mirror: The Cassation Court upheld prison terms ranging between 2 and 5 years against 5 suspects accused of smuggling wanted in political case.

The authorities say that the suspects from the fourth till the eleventh are fugitives. Thus, they communicated with the third one who is a fugitive in Iran in order to help them flee to Iran. The first one received calls from the third suspect who asked the first one to buy a big boat to smuggle the suspects and gave him its price.

The first suspect bought a boat, communicated with the second one and asked him to participate in smuggling the suspects from the fourth till the eleventh. The first one contacted with the suspects from the fourth till the eleventh, gathered them in the house of the fourth one, where they stayed for several days and then took them to one of the houses in Nabil Saleh area. They then set a date to flee and took them to the house of the second suspect's father, where they stayed for one night. Then, the first and second suspects hid the others in boxes in the boat and sailed.

However, due to a failure in the boat after entering the shallow water area and at the same time information was received about the escape, the Coast Guard department stopped the boat. The first and second suspects were so nervous and didn't justify their presence at that are. Thus, the Coast Guard searched the boat and found the defendants from the fourth to the eleventh hiding in boxes in the boat. The first-instance court handed down 5-year jail term to 3 defendants, 3-year jail term to 6 others and 2-year jail term to the eighth and eleventh suspects.

Arabic Version