Nine Bahraini Shiites have been jailed for life and stripped of their nationality for smuggling arms to be used in "terrorist acts", the Gulf kingdom's prosecutor general announced today.
A Manama court also found all nine guilty of having contacted an agent of an unnamed foreign country "to carry out acts hostile to Bahrain", he said in a statement.
The case dates back to February 2013 when authorities in the Sunni-ruled country announced they had dismantled a "terrorist cell" with links to Shiite Iran.
Members of the group spied for Tehran and its elite Revolutionary Guards, the interior ministry said at the time, and had set up an armed organisation called Jaish al-Imam, or the army of the imam.
Dozens of Bahraini Shiites have been given lengthy prison terms after being convicted of involvement in protests which have shaken the country since February 2011.
The tiny but strategic kingdom, just across the Gulf from Iran and home base for the US Fifth Fleet, remains deeply divided three years after authorities crushed the uprising.
Protests in Shiite villages around the capital still spark clashes with police.
