High Court to hear bus bombing case on October 19

Chief Prosecutor at the Anti-terror Crime Prosecution, Isa Al-Rowaie, said the High Criminal Court on October 19 will hear the case of the terrorist bombing that targeted a security bus on the King Hamad Street on February 26 and resulted in injuries to a number of security men.

He said that the Anti-terror Crime Prosecution completed its investigations and that 25 suspects were referred by the Prosecution, including 14 arrested and charged with the establishment and joining of a terrorist group, creating explosions, attempted murdering of security personnel, illegal possession, handling, storage and training on the use of weapons, explosives and firearms, financing a terrorist group and the destruction of public funds owned by the government. 

The Public Prosecution earlier on had received a report from the General Directorate of Criminal Investigation (CID) regarding the establishment of a terrorist cell inside Bahrain. Some of the leaders of the so-called (Saraya Al-Shtar) or Al-Ashtar Brigades terrorist group whose leaders are mainly fugitives abroad who continued their activities. They organized terrorist plots inside the country and recruited elements inside the country to establish and run a new terrorist cell. 

The cell members were trained militarily in Iran and Iraq on the use weapons, explosives manufacturing, monitoring vehicles of the security forces, leading personalities (VIPs) and vital locations in the Kingdom of Bahrain, to prepare warehousing and storage locations around the country’s regions, to hide firearms and explosives which are smuggled from abroad into Bahrain to use them in implementing the plans of the terrorist group. 

Members of the terrorist group had sufficient expertise and capacity to implement the group’s plans aimed to target several leading personalities (VIPs) and security commanders, to spread chaos and panic in the community and to prevent the security forces from carrying out their duties. They supplied these elements with the necessary funds, weapons, explosives and firearms to carry out their terroristic crimes.
At the request of the Public Prosecution, security investigations were carried out which concluded that 25 suspects had participated in the terrorist group including 14 arrestees and others who are still at large. 

The arrested suspects confessed to having established and joined a terrorist group and to having created an explosion, attempted murdering of security men, trained on the use of weapons, explosives and possession, handling and manufacturing of explosives substances and firearms without license and they financed their terrorist group that damaged government-owned public funds.

Also, in some of the suspects homes and hideouts tools and materials were seized which they used in committing their crimes. The Prosecution’s investigation relied on the victims’ testimonies, course of investigation, officers who carried out the arrests, seized materials, confessions of the arrestees, technical and medical reports, photographic evidence conducted with some of the suspects on how they committed their ascribed crimes which matched with their confessions