Verdict postponed in Qatar espionage Case

The Fourth Higher Criminal Court yesterday postponed the verdict in a case involving two accused of spying for Qatar and receiving Qatari funds to harm Bahrain’s legislative authority to February 6. The suspects will remain imprisoned until the announcement of the verdict. They were arrested from Bahrain International Airport while returning to Bahrain from Qatar with large undeclared amounts of money.

According to court files, a total of BD12,500 was seized from the suspects upon their arrival to the Kingdom from Qatar via. Kuwait last October. Investigators found that the suspects received the money from a former Qatari Waqf, Interior and Internal Affairs Minister Abdullah bin Khalid Al Thani through their bank accounts or directly by frequently travelling to Qatar. One of the suspects received money to support his electoral campaign for the 2018 parliamentary elections in Bahrain.

He, however, told the court that he “forgot” to declare the BD12,000 to the Customs Department. He also denied the allegation that the money was meant to support his electoral campaign, claiming that it was given to him “to fix rainwater isolation equipment”. Judicial permission was previously issued to record telephone calls between the suspects, which confirmed the results of the investigations.

Further investigation also showed that both of them, between 2013-2018, received a total of BD225,804 from the same Qatari official, who’s named on an international terrorism list issued by the Anti-Terror Arab Quartet, which consists of Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.  

The Public Prosecution accused both suspects with exchanging intelligence information with someone working for a foreign country to undermine the national interests. They were also accused of illegally receiving money without claiming it at the Customs Department. The Prosecution ordered the confiscation of the money back then.