Bahrain to execute man for police death
Maher al-Khabaz was found guilty of killing a police officer during the two year anniversary of the country’s uprising.
A Bahrain court has sentenced a man to death for the killing of a police officer, local media reported.
Lawyer Jassim Sarhan told the AP news agency that the court sentenced Maher al-Khabaz, a Bahraini man, on Wednesday for the death of policeman Mohamed Asif Khan, who was fatally wounded during clashes with anti-government activists in February 2013.
Six others were sentenced to life in prison and two others received five and six years for Khan’s death.
The country’s state-run media have called the death of the officer a “terrorist attack…using an incendiary projectile”.
The attack last year followed clashes between security forces and demonstrators on the second anniversary of the 2011
uprising by mostly majority Shia Muslims demanding democratic reforms in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.
Suppressing uprisings
During those clashes, security forces also killed a teenager and injured dozens more protesters, an opposition website said. Security forces confirmed they fired warning shots at the crowds and that one young man was killed.
At the uprising’s third anniversary last week, a policeman died from his injuries in a bomb explosion the day before tens of
thousands of Bahrainis held a peaceful march to mark the uprising that happened three years ago.
Bahrain crushed the demonstrations that began on February 14, 2011 amid protests sweeping other Arab countries, but it has yet to resolve the conflict between majority Shias and the Sunni-led monarchy they accuse of oppressing them.
The ruling family has launched bilateral talks with opposition groups after national reconciliation meetings ended with no agreement.
More than 65 people have died in unrest in the country.