Four get jail for arson in election campaigns

Manama

Four suspects implicated in connection with an arson attack during the parliamentary and municipal elections campaigns last year have been sentenced to five years in jail. The defendants set fire to a car polishing shop, owned by a candidate in the parliamentary elections. Several then-candidates suffered arson attacks on their properties during the electoral campaigns held between October and November 2014. The fire completely destroyed the car polishing shop of Mohammed Akrawi in Sitra. However, only two of the accused are in police custody, while the others are still at large. They were sent for trial by the Terror Crimes Prosecution on charges of arson as well as possessing firebombs and destroying a private property. One of the suspects admitted to committing the crime along with the other suspects, adding that they had been accustomed to making explosives. The attack destroyed two customers' vehicles, which were inside the shop at the time of the fire. Judges at the High Criminal Court fined the defendants BD2,000 each and ordered all of them, except the fourth suspect, to pay the damages cost to the victim. The attacks on candidates are believed to be part of a campaign of intimidation by supporters of Bahrain's political opposition, who boycotted the elections. The High Criminal Court is also due to announce another verdict in a case involving six defendants accused of setting ablaze a then-candidate's two vehicles. The two vehicles of Shaikh Majeed Al Asfoors, who won the elections unopposed, were torched during the last year's elections. It happened after he had registered as a parliamentary candidate in the Capital Governorate's constituency eight. Of the six defendants, who are aged between 15 and 23, only four are in police custody as the others are at large. They are being tried in absentia and their sentence is to be announced on September 9.