DUBAI: Bahrain’s public prosecution said yesterday it charged eight policemen with torturing detainees in the wake of last year’s crackdown on Shia-led protests.
“Five cases have been referred to special courts after charging eight policemen, including a lieutenant,” the prosecution said in a statement carried by the BNA state news agency.
The charges range from “using torture to force a defendant to confess, to causing a permanent disability, as well as insults and physical assaults,” the statement said.
In September, a policeman was jailed seven years for killing a protester during the month-long protests that were brutally quelled in mid-March 2011.
The authorities say they are implementing the recommendations of an independent commission of inquiry called for by the king that confirmed allegations of excessive use of force by security forces during the uprising against the Sunni ruling dynasty.
Home to the US Fifth Fleet and strategically situated across the Gulf from Iran, Bahrain still witnesses sporadic Shia-led demonstrations, mostly outside the capital. According to the International Federation for Human Rights, around 80 people have been killed in Bahrain since the violence began on February 14, 2011.
17 Yemeni soldiers killed in ambush
SANA’A: Yemeni military planes yesterday struck at Al Qaeda insurgents suspected of carrying out an ambush in which 17 army officers and soldiers were killed, tribal sources said. The ambush, which took place on Saturday while an army patrol inspected a pipeline in Wadi Obaida area of oil-producing Maarib province, was one of the deadliest attacks by Al Qaeda in recent months.
President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi attended the funeral ceremony on Monday for the dead servicemen, who included Major-General Nasser Mahdi Farid, chief of staff for Yemen’s central military region, state news agency Saba said.
AFP/Reuters
