Appeals Court reduces IS members’ jail term

Manama : The Supreme Appeals Court has reduced the jail sentences issued against eight Islamic State (IS) members. But the court of first instance’s decision to remove their Bahraini nationality was upheld.

Twenty-four men, including IS’ ideological lodestar Turki Al Binali, were tried in connection with this case, but only eight appealed the sentences as the rest are at large. 

Turki had earlier handed down life imprisonment, while his other co-defendants were given 15 years behind bars each. The eight appellants’ jail terms have been slashed to 10 years in prison each.  

 Aged between 16 and 42, the defendants were charged in October last year with forming a cell of the IS group, plotting suicide attacks and recruiting fighters for the jihadist organisation. 

The defendants were said to have been planning to carry out a suicide bombing in a local mosque.  

The mastermind of the cell was Turki who is believed to have recruited dozens of Bahraini youth and sent them to the front-lines outside the country. The suspects also include two of Albinali’s brothers (the second and third defendants). 

The second defendant reportedly travelled to Syria where he received military training and took part in hostilities before returning to the Kingdom of Bahrain. 

He along with the third defendant were assigned later by their brother Turki to encourage more young Bahrainis to join IS and facilitate their travel to Syria to receive militia training and fight with IS members. 

The fourteenth defendant is said to have requested the fifth defendant to carry out a terrorist attack against Shiites in Bahrain because there wasn’t sufficient money to help him travel to Syria. They reportedly targeted the A’ali Grand Mosque in a bid to kill a number of Shiite worshipers. Turki was charged with establishing a branch for a terrorist organisation intended to disable the provisions of the Constitution and prevent state institutions and public authorities from exercising its business by terror means. 

The other defendants were indicted for joining a terrorist organisation, receiving militia training, using arms, possessing weapons and explosives, participating in terrorist operations and planning to carry out terrorist attacks in Bahrain. Bahrain announced on October 21 last year charging 24 people with forming a cell of IS, plotting suicide bombings and recruiting fighters for the jihadist organisation. The move came after investigations into the formation of a “branch for a terrorist group... the so-called Daesh,” said a prosecution statement, using the Arabic acronym for IS.