DUBAI: A Bahraini court sentenced 22 Shias to 15 years in prison yesterday over the killing of a policeman and wounding another in an attack outside Manama, a judicial source said.
Another defendant was jailed for only three years because he is a minor, while two others were acquitted.
The 25 were accused of involvement with a bomb that targeted police in the Shia village of Akr, and of attacking security forces with iron rods and petrol bombs, BNA state news agency said.
The policeman died of wounds after an iron rod penetrated his skull, BNA said citing a prosecution statement.
Sixteen of the defendants remain at large, it said.
Since the 2011 Shia-led uprising, which called for democratic reforms, demonstrations have regularly been held in villages around the capital, often sparking clashes with security forces.
At least 89 people have been killed in the Sunni-ruled kingdom since the protests began, according to the International Federation for Human Rights.
Puntland elects former Somali
PM as president
MOGADISHU: Abdiweli Mohamed Ali Gaas, a former Somali prime minister, was elected president yesterday of the semi-autonomous Puntland region, an area of Somalia struggling to shed its image as a pirate haven and still threatened by Islamist militants.
An economist by training, Ali was elected by lawmakers by the narrowest of margins, scoring 33 votes in the third round of polling, just one more than incumbent President Abdurahman Mohamed Farole. One vote was spoilt.
The 66 lawmakers who cast their votes were appointed last month by clan elders in the poverty-stricken region, which forms the tip of the Horn of Africa and makes up around a third of Somalia’s territory.
Agencies
