RIYADH/manama: A Saudi court yesterday sentenced 13 people to up to 14 years in prison for backing “terrorist organisations”, training with Al Qaeda and luring young people to fight abroad, media reported.
The ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom recently toughened measures against Islamist groups, listing Al Qaeda-linked organisations fighting in Syria among terrorist movements.
The 13 — nine Saudis, two Jordanians, an Egyptian and one Syrian — were convicted of providing support to people wanted for security reasons, and “supporting terrorism, as well as terrorist acts and organisations”, the official SPA news agency said.
Some defendants were charged with undergoing weapons training at “Al Qaeda bases”, SPA said.
Charges also included “coordinating to arrange the travel of misled youths to areas of trouble and fighting”, the agency said, without elaborating.
One defendant received a 14-year jail sentence, while the remainder were jailed for between three and nine years.
The interior ministry this month published a list of “terror” groups, including Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Al Nusra Front which is Al Qaeda’s official Syrian affiliate, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, another jihadist group fighting in Syria and Iraq.
It also includes the little-known Saudi Hezbollah Shia militant group, as well as Shia Huthi rebels fighting in neighbouring Yemen.
The ministry said it will prosecute those who back such groups “financially or morally”, or seek to promote them in the media and on social networks.
It also forbids “participation in, calling for, or incitement to fighting in conflict zones in other countries” as well as calling for demonstrations or taking part in them.
After a wave of deadly Al Qaeda attacks in the kingdom between 2003 and 2006, Saudi authorities cracked down on the local branch of the group founded by the late Osama bin Laden, himself Saudi-born.
Meanwhile, a Bahrain court handed 15-year jail sentences to 11 defendants after convicting them of “manufacturing bombs for terror purposes”, the official BNA news agency reported.
The High Criminal Court jailed another defendant for five years on similar charges at Tuesday’s hearing, BNA quoted prosecutor Nawaf Al Awadhi as saying in a statement.
Bahrain, home to the US Fifth Fleet, remains deeply divided three years after a quashed Shia-led uprising, with persistent protests sparking clashes with police, scores of Shiites jailed on “terror” charges and reconciliation talks deadlocked.
The 12 defendants were charged with “possessing weapons, ammunition and explosives as well as manufacturing bombs for terror purposes,” said Awadhi.
The group smuggled ammunition and bomb-making materials into the country and hid them on a farm, the statement said.
Among the weapons seized were five Kalashnikovs and five revolvers in addition to explosives and ammunition.
They planned to target members of the security forces and public figures to “spread chaos and terror” in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.
According to the statement, some of the defendants had confessed to their involvement in the plot while others of the group remain at large.
The statement did not give details on the number of defendants tried in absentia.
The authorities last year increased the penalties for those convicted of violence, introducing the death penalty or life sentences in certain cases.
The International Federation for Human Rights says at least 89 people have been killed in Bahrain since the uprising began in February 2011.AFP
