NSA Gets More Teeth

Manama : The Kingdom has again allowed National Security Agency (NSA) judicial powers to arrest and detain civilians involved in terror crimes, according to Ahmed Al Dossary, Senior Advocate General. 

The NSA was established as per a Royal Decree issued in 2002, which granted the agency judicial powers to arrest and detain civilians involved in crimes.  The NSA lost this power in 2011. 

However, the agency has again been granted this power as per a Royal decree 1/2017 that amended provisions of Royal Decree 14/2002 granting powers to arrest and detain civilians involved in terror related crimes.

However, Royal Decree 1/2017 allows NSA to make arrests only in terror related crimes. The jurisdiction to arrest and detain in all other crimes, however,  remains with the Ministry of Interior.

“The powers of NSA officers to exercise judicial powers to arrest and detain will be restricted to terror crimes as stipulated in the Decree,” said Ahmed Al Dossary in a statement, adding, the amendment is in view of the high risk of terror crimes which necessitates prompt action to thwart plots, halt their impact, gather evidence and arrest the culprits.

Whenever the NSA discovers crimes that have no terror link  such crimes will be referred to the Ministry of Interior to take the legal action, as Decree 1/2017 clearly stipulates that apart from terror crimes, the NSA should refer the cases that require making arrests or detentions to the Ministry of Interior to take the legal action in this regard, he said.

The amendment to the Decree comes in the wake of the recent Jau jail attack by armed gunmen in which a policeman was killed and another wounded allowing several prison inmates to escape. 

There has been no information about the attackers, who freed about 10 prisoners from the Jau central prison.

“Seven of the escapees had been serving life sentences and three were serving lengthy jail terms for “terrorist acts”, the Interior Ministry said on Sunday.