NCRI – Bahrain has charged 18 people with contacting the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist group with the aim of stirring up unrest in the kingdom, the state news agency BNA reported on Wednesday.
BNA said the prosecution had established after the investigation that the group had formed a “secret cell” to incite Bahrainis against the ruling system and to propagate information calling for changing the government by force.
It said the group had contacted leaders of the IRGC and the Lebanese Hezbollah group to “obtain financial and logistical support” in exchange for regular reports on the political, economic and social situation in the kingdom.
“It had been established that the money that had been received had been used to support those held in jail in relation to terrorism cases and terrorist groups to encourage them to carry out more terrorist acts,” the report said.
The agency said 10 of the suspects were in custody while eight would go on trial this month in absentia.
On May 29 it was announced that an appeals court in Bahrain upheld life prison sentences against five men convicted of spying for Iran’s regime.
A statement by the prosecution said the court rejected the appeal by the five defendants.
The men were convicted in November of “spying for and seeking with Iran and its agents to carry out hostile acts against the kingdom.”
They were found guilty of working with the IRGC to carry out attacks in Bahrain against “public and financial institutions.”
Two of them had received training in Iran on “the manufacture and use of explosives and firearms in preparation for carrying out these hostile attacks,” according to the charges.
In February Bahrain adopted measures to counter the Iranian regime’s “interference” in the kingdom.
“We have taken a series of measures to confront the dangers of terrorism,” Bahrain’s Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid al-Khalifa said at the time.
The measures included monitoring money transfers and donations to combat the “financing of terrorism” and imposing travel restrictions on citizens.
Sheikh Rashid also said authorities will also take measures to “protect religious discourse against religious and political extremism as well as incitement.”
Bahrain has repeatedly accused the Iranian regime of meddling in its internal affairs.
Bahrain recalled its ambassador to Iran in October 2015 after it said security forces discovered a bomb-making factory and arrested a number of suspects linked to the IRGC.
Bahrain cut diplomatic relations with Iran’s regime in January, one day after Saudi Arabia severed ties with the mullahs’ regime following attacks by demonstrators on the Saudi diplomatic missions in Tehran and Mashhad.
Based in part on wire reports