Bahrain jails 3 Iran \'spies\'

Bahrain has sentenced one of its citizens and two foreigners to 10 years in prison for spying for Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Akhbar Al-Khaleej newspaper reported yesterday. Bahrain's high criminal court sentenced "three defendants to 10 years in prison for spying for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, one of them a Bahraini and two others" who worked as diplomats in Iran's embassy in Kuwait and were sentenced in absentia, the daily reported. The prosecution said the three "spied from 2002 until April 2010 in the Kingdom of Bahrain and abroad," and gave the Guards economic and military information, including the locations of military, industrial and economic installations, Akhbar Al-Khaleej said. The Bahraini was recruited while visiting relatives in Kuwait, it said, adding the Iranians had also spied on the Kuwaiti military, US forces in Kuwait, and oil installations in the emirate. In Tehran, a foreign ministry official rejected the reports as "incorrect". "There is no information regarding arrest or sentencing of Iranian nationals in Bahrain," a ministry official in charge of Middle East affairs, Hossein Amir Abodolahian, told Mehr news agency. "There had been past reports that an Iranian nation al had been arrested and tried by a Bahraini court... Our consul then met with him and it turned out he did not have Iranian nationality," he added. In early April, Kuwait expelled three Iranian diplomats it accused of working for an Iranian spy ring, reportedly since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Iran in response expelled "several" Kuwaiti diplomats. The row also prompted the Gulf state to recall its ambassador from Tehran. Iran and Kuwait have, however, reportedly exchanged ambassadors again. Manama has along with other Gulf states repeatedly accused Iran of interference in Bahrain in connection with Shiite-led pro-reform protests in the tiny Gulf ki ngdom that were crushed in a bloody March crackdown by security forces. Separately, Human Rights Watch yesterday accused Bahrain of carrying out a "campaign of violent oppression" against its citizens and called for an end to abuses. Pro-reform protesters took to the streets of Bahrain on February 14, but security forces crushed the demonstrations a month later in a bloody crackdown followed by sweeping arrests. The authorities said 24 were killed in the unrest. "The Bahrain government, since March 2011, has been carrying out a punitive and vindictive campaign of violent repre ssion against its own citizens," HRW said in a statement. Bahrain has brutally punished those protesting peacefully for greater freedom and accountability while the US and other allies looked the other way," HRW's deputy Middle East director, Joe Stork, was quoted as saying. HRW called on "the Bahrain government to end unlawful and incommunicado detention, to free protesters unless legitimate criminal charges can be brought against them, and to allow monitoring by independent human rights organisations". The New York-based rights watchdog said it has been prevented from working in Bahrain since April. Its latest report on Bahrain, which was released on Tuesday, offers sharp criticism of the kingdom's conduct, placing it in the same class as Syria, Libya and long-time strongman Hosni Mubarak's Egypt - all of which have carried out violent campaigns to suppress pro-reform protesters. "Bahrain's ruling Al-Khalifa family has been carrying out a systematic and comprehensive crackdown to punish and intimidate go vernment critics and to end dissent," it said. The report also raised doubts about the potential of a national dialogue, the first session of which was held on Tuesday evening. "The ruling family has stacked the deck in a way that unfortunately makes a resolution (through the dialogue) highly unlikely," it said. "In place of Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, the original proponent of the dialogue, King Hamad has appointed the speaker of the parliament, a proponent of the government crackdown, to convene and direct it.Leading opposition figures essential to any successful dialogue have been sentenced to prison or are facing special military court trials simply for participating in peaceful demonstrations and criticising the government, and even legally recognised opposition parties have been completely marginalised. Al-Wefaq, the main Shiite opposition group in Shiite-majority Bahrain, has been allowed five representatives out of some 300 people invited to the dialogue, despite having won 18 out of 40 seats in recent parliamentary elections. The bloc withdrew its MPs to protest violence against demonstrators.