DUBAI: A Bahrain court yesterday jailed two policemen for seven years each after convicting them of torturing to death a Shia detainee in the wake of last year’s crackdown on protests, a local daily said. The Gulf kingdom’s high criminal court found the two national security members guilty of torturing Abdul Karim Fakhrawi to death while in detention, Al Wasat’s online edition reported. The court had in May thrown out the case against the two defendants for lack of proof and sent it back to the prosecution for further investigation. A number of policemen are being investigated or are on trial for allegedly torturing detainees after hundreds of Shiites were rounded up when security forces in the Sunni-ruled state quelled a month-long protest in mid-March 2011. 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.
Libya church blast kills two Egyptians
TRIPOLI: An explosion rocked a Christian Coptic church near the western Libyan city of Misurata yesterday, killing two people and wounding two others, all of them Egyptians, an Egyptian diplomat said. “Two Egyptians were killed and two were wounded,” said the diplomat at the Egyptian embassy in Tripoli who declined to be named. “The consul went directly to Misurata to find out the details. We still don’t have clear information,” the diplomat said.
24 UAE women
get NASA training
Abu Dhabi: The UAE’s first all-female team of 24 aspiring engineers, researchers and astronauts, between the ages of 12 and 18, has completed an on-site space training at the Nasa Space Center, Houston. The training was organised and coordinated by Space Ed-Ventures, a UAE-based educational platform and the region’s only space exploration programme.
Kuwait grants
$259m to Jordan
Amman: Kuwait and Jordan signed here yesterday four agreements in which Kuwait would donate around $259.5m to Jordan to help the country develop projects in the health, education, higher education and water-resources sectors. The two countries had signed three agreements worth $695m to help develop projects in the housing, municipal and transportation sectors early this month.
Agencies
