Spying case postponed to Jan 4

Manama : The High Criminal Court yesterday postponed the trial of Ali Salman Ali Ahmed, the former head of the now-dissolved Al Wefaq Society, Hasan Ali Juma Sultan and Ali Mahdi Ali Al Aswad who are suspected of spying for Qatar, to January 4.

Advocate General Osama Al Oufi said the court decided in its third review of the case in a public hearing to call for the postponement to listen to the testimonies of the third and fourth witnesses as requested by the lawyers and to hand over a copy of all the documents and CDs related to the case. Both witnesses are covered by the witness protection programme.

Ali Salman, Hassan Sultan and Ali Al Aswad are being tried on charges of spying for a foreign country to carry out subversive acts against Bahrain and undermine its political and economic status and its national interests in order to topple the regime. 

Other charges include passing on defence secrets to a foreign country, accepting money from a foreign country in exchange for supplying military secrets and information related to the internal situation in the country, and broadcasting news and false and malicious rumours abroad to weaken financial trust in the kingdom and undermine its status. The public prosecution said the charges are based on evidence gathered from the testimonies of witnesses and recorded telephone conversations between Ali Salman and Hassan Sultan with Qatari officials that included agreements and coordination between the two sides to carry out subversive acts against Bahrain.

The public prosecution added it relied for evidence on Qatar’s record of activities targeting Arab countries, mainly Bahrain, and its use of media to incite people against the political regimes in these countries while having close contacts with nationals opposed to their countries, such as the Bahraini suspects in the case.