A Bahraini teenager who was arrested following a pro-Palestine march has admitted to charges of possessing and throwing Molotov cocktails.
The 19-year-old was sentenced to six months behind bars, with judges granting him leniency in sentencing because of his young age and clean record.
The High Criminal Court found him guilty of attacking security forces, using incendiary devices and participating in an illegal gathering in East Eker.
Although the teen admitted to the charges, his lawyer asked that he be acquitted of unlawful gathering accusations because the march was ‘for a just purpose’.
“We cannot describe the gathering as a crime because it championed the Palestinian cause,” his lawyer Najla Ali Baqer argued.
“Although it was unlicensed, the demonstration was for a humanitarian cause, opposing a conflict in which so many Arab families, including innocent children, have perished.
“For it to be an illegal gathering, it has to be intended at disrupting public security. On the contrary, it was meant to support the Palestinian people in their plight and tragedy, not to disrupt law and order in Bahrain.”
A police officer who witnessed the gathering told the Public Prosecution about the late October incident.
“I received intel about a group of people organising an unlicensed demonstration in East Eker. I went to the area with a number of police patrols,” he earlier testified.
“At the beginning, I saw 20 people, but the number increased to 70. We asked them to disperse, and after a few attempts they scattered into the village.”
He went on to testify that a group of youths approached the patrols and began to throw Molotov cocktails at them, although they failed to make a hit.
The teenage defendant earlier admitted to prosecutors being present at the gathering, recounting how he took two incendiary devices from a person carrying a bucketful of unlit cocktails and distributing them.
“I learned about the protest on Instagram and decided to join it,” the teen from Sanad said. “After picking up a couple of Molotovs, I lit them on fire and threw them, but nothing was damaged.”
He once again admitted to the accusations during High Criminal Court hearings. Although the court found him guilty of all four counts, he received a much lighter penalty than is typical in such cases.
“The charges are all connected to one another in an indivisible way, and can in effect be considered a single crime,” read the verdict.
Judges rejected the lawyer’s argument that the accusations were ‘too generalised’ but agreed to use mercy in his case because of his age and lack of prior offences.
“The defendant is a young man with his whole future ahead of him,” his lawyer earlier argued. “He committed the crimes believing that he was doing the right thing, but has since realised the error of his ways.”
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