Spying case referred to High Criminal Court

Manama : The Public Prosecution has referred the case of Ali Salman Ali Ahmed, Hasan Ali Juma Sultan and Ali Mahdi Ali Al Aswad to the High Criminal Court, Advocate General in the Public Prosecution, Ahmed Al Hammadi said in a statement yesterday. 

The trio are facing  charges of intelligence contacts with Qatar, Al Hammadi said.

According to Al Hammadi, the three suspects are charged with establishing foreign intelligence links to commit subversive acts against Bahrain and undermine its political, economic position and national interests with the purpose of overthrowing the regime. 

“The suspects passed on national defence secrets to a foreign country. They accepted financial sums from a foreign country to supply it with military secrets and information pertaining to the Kingdom’s internal affairs. They deliberately spread false rumours aimed to weaken the financial confidence in Bahrain to damage its national sovereignty and financial reputation abroad,” Al Hammadi said.

“Investigations confirmed the validity of these charges, including Qatar’s involvement in the activities aimed to undermine Arab countries, especially Bahrain, evidenced by the Qatari media’s hostile campaign against Bahrain and communicating with anti-state elements, including the suspects in this case, for this purpose,” he said.

“Investigations revealed the existence of direct communications via meetings between the two sides inside Bahrain and abroad and the exchange of messages and telephone calls which were monitored after obtaining legal permissions. These acts exposed that the two sides agreed to carry out hostile act of sabotage to undermine Bahrain’s status and conveyed information about military mobilizations in the Kingdom of Bahrain during the 2011 crisis,” he said.

“They tried to weaken these mobilizations aimed to secure Bahrain by not participating in them. Qatar instead directed its media to achieve this purpose and allowed the suspects to appear in the Qatar media to spread false news and disinformation aimed to jeopardize Bahrain’s military, political and economic position and to tarnish its reputation abroad,” he said.

“The suspects, coordinated their intelligence ties with Qatar, carried out hostile activities against the Kingdom’s national interest and tasked a communications officer to contact Qatari officials. The suspects conducted several interventions and participations through the Qatari media at the behest of the Qatari side in which they spread false stories and rumours about the Kingdom’s internal situation aimed to spread strife, distort the image of its regime internally and externally,” he said. 

“The suspects, as part of their agreement with Doha, provided Qatar with secret information about the mobilizations of Bahrain Defence Force, National Guard, Public Security, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)’s Peninsula Shield Joint Force. 

They also monitored the forces’ points of concentrations and budgets for the purpose of targeting the regime by spreading rumours, chaos, instability and creating a continuous internal turmoil to topple the regime,” the said.

“The suspects received large financial amounts from Qatar in consideration for carrying out their acts of sabotage against Bahrain. One of the witnesses said the suspect Ali Salman threatened to resort to Iran to bring its military might into Bahrain as soon as he knew that the GCC Peninsula Shield Forces had entered the Kingdom in the aftermath of 2011 incidents,” he said.