Twenty Bahraini doctors have been sentenced to jail terms of up to fifteen years for charges which include incitement to overthrow the government by force in the unrest earlier this year, according to a statement issued by the Information Affairs Authority (IAA) on Thursday.
The Military Prosecutor, Colonel Yussef Rashid Flaifel, announced that thirteen of the doctors have been sentenced to fifteen years in prison, two for ten years, and five for five years in jail.
The doctors were also charged with possession of weapons and ammunition, forcefully taking control over the Salmaniya Hospital and its personnel, stealing medical equipment, and fabricating stories to disturb public security.
All the defendants can now appeal to Bahrain’s highest civilian court, the Court of Cassation, according to Decree Number 28 issued earlier this year by HM King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa.
The Salmaniya Hospital was used as a coordination centre for three weeks for protests calling for the overthrow of the Government. Those doctors who have been found guilty were charged with abusing the hospital for political purposes. Nobody is above the law,” an IAA spokesman, said.
The Bahrain National Safety Courts, where they were tried, were set up for dealing with the more serious cases during the unrest earlier this year. All the defendants can now appeal to Bahrain’s highest civilian court.
According to the detailed judgment of the Court in the case for occupying Salmaniya Medical Complex (SMC) and also under charges of possession of incendiary (Molotov) cocktail bombs and some unlicensed light weapons to topple the regime as well as confiscating medical equipment ,spreading fabricating stories and lies and violating laws and regulations in order to disturb public security and commit crimes for terror reasons and here is the following sentences against those who are involved in this case Dr. Ali Al-Ekri, 15 years imprisonment; Dr. Nader Diwani, 15 years imprisonment; Dr. Ahmed Abdul Aziz Omran, 15 years imprisonment; Dr. Mahmoud Asghar, 15-years imprisonment; Rola Al Saffar, 15-years imprisonment; Dr. Abdulkhaleq Al-Oraibi, 15-years imprisonment; Dr. Ghassan Dhaif, 15-years imprisonment; Dr. Bassim Dhaif, 15-years imprisonment; Sayed Marhoon Al-Wedaie, 15-years imprisonment; Dr. Nada Dhaif, 15-years imprisonment; Dr. Fatima Haji, 5-years imprisonment; Dheya Ibrahim AbuIdris 5-years imprisonment; Dr. Najah Khalil Al-Haddad, 5-years imprisonment; Dr. Saeed Al-Samahiji, 10-years imprisonment; Dr. Zahra Al-Sammak, 5-years imprisonment; Ali Hassan Alsddi, 15-years imprisonment; Ibrahim Abdullah Ibrahim, 15-years imprisonment; Hassan Mohammed Said, 10-years imprisonment; Mohammed Faiq Ali, 5-years imprisonment and Qassim Mohammed Omran, 15-years imprisonment.
The Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, the BICI, which is independent of the Government, has been investigating all the events of the unrest, especially in February and March this year. When it publishes its findings by the end of October, everyone will know what happened during those dark times, which will help all of the country to move onwards.