Bahrain Court Jails Police over Torture to Death
A Bahraini court on Thursday sentenced a policeman to seven years in jail for torturing to death a protester during a Shiite-led uprising in February 2011, a lawyer said.
"The killer of martyr Ali Musheime was sentenced to seven years in prison, which is the maximum sentence for the charge of beating to death," lawyer Rim Khalaf wrote on her Twitter account.
Musheime was the first fatality of month-long protests against the rule of the Sunni al-Khalifa dynasty.
A number of policemen are being investigated or on trial for allegedly torturing detainees after hundreds of Shiites were rounded up when security forces crushed the protests 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.
Home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet and strategically situated across the Gulf from Iran, Bahrain still sees sporadic Shiite-led demonstrations, mostly outside the capital Manama.
According to the International Federation for Human Rights, around 80 people have been killed in Bahrain since the violence first broke out on February 14, 2011.
Source: Agence France Presse
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