Bahrain’s own Bonnie and Clyde, a notorious pair of thieves, have been found guilty of carrying out a carjacking by threatening to bomb the vehicle’s passengers – a woman and her child.
The High Criminal Court convicted the man and woman of stealing through force on a public road and threatening to set off an explosion using a gas cylinder and lighter.
The two were sentenced to five years behind bars, less than six months after receiving two-year suspended jail sentences in another theft case.
Unlike the US bandits Bonnie and Clyde, the pair is neither married nor appear to be romantically involved with one another, though they were convicted in two cases together last year.
The 46-year-old unemployed man and 32-year-old homemaker, both Bahraini citizens, admitted to the allegations during questioning, but went on to deny all charges in court.
Authorities uncovered the identity of the thieves after matching a DNA sample with the male defendant’s from swabs lifted from the steering wheel, gear and door handle.
Court documents state that the duo stole the car of a Pakistani man after pushing out his wife and daughter from the vehicle, while the man was in a shop.
“It was 9.30pm and I had parked my car by the side of a road in front of a market in East Riffa, with my family waiting for me inside the vehicle,” the 29-year-old auto parts salesman told the Public Prosecution.
“As I was in the store, I heard a commotion outside, so I stepped out and saw two individuals driving off with the car owned by my father.”
The wife claimed that the first defendant, who held a large gas cylinder in one hand and a lighter in the other, kicked her out of the car under threats of setting off a bomb and then fled along with his accomplice.
She added that the man left the canister on the street and fled with the stolen vehicle. He was earlier seen rolling the cylinder across the street accompanied by the female defendant.
The criminal record of the pair revealed a long history of misdeeds, including two thefts committed together in 2023, for which they were sentenced to a year each – though the penalty was later suspended.
In one case, they had stolen tyres of vehicles owned by a well-known financing firm and in the other they stole aluminium doors and appliances.
The woman, who lives in Salmabad, was twice convicted of filling up petrol in 2015 and 2016 and leaving without paying. In 2018, she was found guilty of making off with two silver rings from a store.
According to the records, her criminal history extends back at least 20 years.
Bonnie and Clyde were a husband-and-wife crime duo who operated as part of a gang in the 1930s in the United States. They were notorious for having committed several bank robberies and murders, and have to this day survived in popular consciousness as a thieving couple.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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