A Bahraini court on Wednesday jailed 29 people, including an award winning photographer, for up to 10 years for an alleged attack on a police center in April 2012.<\/p>\n
A judicial source and activists said the verdicts were based on defendants’ confessions that were extracted under torture.<\/p>\n
Twenty-six of those convicted were handed 10-year prison terms and three others jailed for three years, a source told AFP.<\/p>\n
Among those sentenced to 10 years was\u00a0Ahmed Humaidan, a 26-year-old photojournalist abducted by plainclothes police in late-2012.<\/p>\n
Humaidan’s lawyer said the court presented no evidence to suggest that he was involved in any attack against police aside from a confession he made under torture.<\/p>\n
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights has documented cases of torture against the young photojournalist in prison, which included being\u00a0blind-folded\u00a0and told to hold an object for hours that police claimed was a bomb.<\/p>\n
The prosecution accused the defendants of attacking a police center in the village of Sitra, south of Manama, with petrol bombs and iron rods, wounding a policeman.<\/p>\n
The other defendants also told the court that they were tortured and their confessions obtained under duress, according to the judicial source.<\/p>\n
Bahrain, home to the US Fifth Fleet, remains in a constant state of turmoil since authorities launched a bloody crackdown on a popular uprising three years ago, with hundreds of protesters and activists jailed on “terror” charges.<\/p>\n
Authorities in the Gulf dictatorship last year increased the penalties for those convicted of violence, introducing the death penalty or life sentences in certain cases.<\/p>\n
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