Bahrain: A fugitive sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment for setting up an outlawed terror group in Bahrain has gone on trial in the UK.
Abdulraouf Al Shayeb was convicted in 2012 of trying to overthrow the monarchy after hatching a plot to form a militia with links to Iran known as the Coalition of February 14.
In the past four years, the group has claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist acts in Bahrain including ATM bombings, attacks on car showrooms and explosions that resulted in the deaths of two Asian expatriates.
Mr Al Shayeb was named as one of the terror cell’s two ringleaders by Public Prosecution spokesman Osama Al Uffi in November 2011, but had fled to the UK and up until recently was working as a translator at the world famous Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London.
According to UK newspaper reports, he was arrested on December 31, 2013 on arrival at Gatwick Airport after visiting Iraq.
A memory card found in his belongings contained notes about the assembly, use and capabilities of a variety of weapons, as well as what has been described as a “jihadi examination paper”.
Police who raided his home in Maida Vale, north-west London, last April reportedly found another memory card with pictures showing him in combat fatigues and holding a handgun with what appeared to be an automatic weapon at his side.
A jury at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, known as the Old Bailey, heard earlier this month that Mr Al Shayeb claimed to be a human rights activist.
However, prosecutor Max Hill QC said the case concerned information “with potential beyond mainstream military use” that carried the “real danger” of falling into “the wrong hands”, British newspaper website Mail Online reported.
“The presence of the photographs of the defendant is powerful evidence that the memory card belongs to the
defendant – and that he was well aware of the content,” said Mr Hill.
“That is what the presentation is aimed at, we suggest armed operations, not carried out by legitimate armed forces such as the army, navy or air force of a country but to protect groups of personnel whilst they are carrying out their jihadi operations.”
A later hearing at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Tuesday saw jurors shown pictures of the defendant with Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition Labour Party in the UK.
Incriminating
Claiming to have met Mr Corbyn “many times” at conferences and in meetings that were in support “of human rights everywhere”, Mr Al Shayeb also denied ownership of the incriminating memory cards and other seized files containing detailed notes headed “weapons”, “destruction”, “missiles” and “rockets and launchers”.
He claimed he wore combat fatigues as “a joke” in preparation for a meeting with an Iraqi MP, according to the UK
Sun newspaper.
Mr Al Shayeb has denied a charge of possessing records likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.
The trial continues.
The GDN reported two years ago on calls for a formal extradition agreement between Bahrain and the UK to be entered into, following accusations that Britain is harbouring terrorists.
It followed the sentencing of 50 Bahrainis convicted of being part of a terror organisation – including Mr Al Shayeb, who was further found guilty of establishing ties with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and accepting funds from abroad to form
a terror cell.
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