Bahrain’s judiciary postponed the first trial session of Ali Salman, the jailed Secretary-General of the banned Al Wefaq movement, Ali Mahdi al-Aswad, and Ali Gomaa Sultan, who was added to the terror lists announced by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
The three defendants were accused of communicating with Qatar to carry out terrorist acts that harm Bahrain's interests, security and stability.
Salman refused to attend the hearing on Monday, thus it has been deferred to Wednesday while Sultan and Aswad have been tried in absentia after they fled the country.
Advocate General Osama al-Oufi stated that the High Criminal Court held on November 27 its first session in the trial of the three defendants on charges of intelligence links with the State of Qatar.
The three suspects were referred by the Public Prosecutor to the court for intelligence contacts with a foreign state to carry out subversive acts against the Kingdom of Bahrain in order to undermine its political and economic status and its national interests and topple the regime, Oufi explained.
They were also charged with revealing defense secrets to a foreign country, accepting money from a foreign state for divulging military secrets and information pertaining to the internal situation in the Kingdom, disseminating false information and inciting allegations abroad in order to weaken financial trust in the Kingdom and undermine its prestige.
On August 16, Bahrain revealed a phone call between Sheikh Haman bin Jassem Al Thani and Ali Salman during the incidents in Bahrain that took place in the period from February 14 until March 16, 2011.
It also disclosed earlier on August 7 that Qatar used to finance terrorist acts in Bahrain by transferring money from the Qatari side to member of Al Wefaq Hassan Issa, a fund that the Bahraini security services confirm was used in the terrorist bombing that killed two security men and wounded eight others in July 2015.
Salman has been behind bars since 2014 serving a nine-year sentence for inciting hatred.
