Bahrain Mirror: The High Criminal Court adjourned the case of 138 defendants until February 19 to listen to the attesting witness. The defendants were accused of establishing and joining the "Zulfiqar Brigades", collaborating with Iran's Revolutionary Guards, blasting 19 bomb attacks and planting hoax bombs in several areas across Bahrain.

The public prosecution's witness was supposed to attend today's session (January 11, 2017) to testify, however, he did not show up.

The defendants also face charges of forming a terrorist group, planting hoax bombs, attempting to murder policemen, receiving training on the use of weapons and explosives in Iranian Revolutionary Guard camps and Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades and communicating with Revolutionary Guard members.

The Public Prosecution had announced that it concluded its investigations in the case of establishing "Zulfiqar Brigades" and referred 138 defendants to court; 86 of whom were imprisoned and 52 were fugitives, whom the authorities could not arrest.

The security forces arrested a large number of citizens at the onset of November 2015 and referred them to the Public Prosecution on November 25. The Prosecution, for its part, investigated the case for 10 months and recently referred the suspects to trial.

Many of the defendants complained to their families about being severely tortured by the security forces who used torture to extract confessions, which were used to refer the suspects to the prosecution.

Arabic Version