DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Bahrain’s special security court on Thursday sentenced a protester to death for killing a policeman, and gave doctors and nurses who treated injured protesters during the country’s uprising earlier this year lengthy prison sentences, a lawyer said.
Attorney Mohsen al-Alawi said the tribunal, set up during Bahrain’s emergency rule, convicted and sentenced 13 medical professionals each to 15 years in prison.
In addition, two doctors were sentenced to 10 years each while five other medics got 5-year prison terms.
The harsh sentences in the two separate court cases suggest that Sunni authorities in the Gulf kingdom will not relent in pursuing and punishing those they accuse of supporting the Shiite-led opposition and participating in dissent that has roiled the tiny island nation.
Earlier this year, the same special court sentenced two other protesters to death for killing a police officer in a separate incident.
Mr. al-Alawi, who was the defense lawyer for several medics, said the 20 medical professionals, who were charged with various anti-state crimes, and the protester who got the death sentence on Thursday can all appeal their verdicts.
A Bahraini rights group identified the protester as Ali Yousef Abdulwahab al-Taweel. The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights said that another suspect, Ali Attia Mahdi, was convicted on Thursday as al-Taweel’s accomplice and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The tribunal’s military prosecutor, Yousef Rashid Flaifel, said the two men were convicted of premeditated murder in the killing of an officer in the oil hub of Sitra.
In comments to the state-run Bahrain News Agency, Mr. Flaifel said the men committed a “terror act” by running over the policeman with two cars. He didn’t say when the incident occurred.
The prosecutor said the men also were convicted of other charges, including participating in a “public protest,” and “spreading terror and fear.”
As for the case of the medics, Mr. Flaifel said they were convicted on charges that include taking part in efforts to “topple the regime,” possessing “unlicensed light weapons” and “spreading fabricated stories and lies.”
Human rights groups blasted the ruling against the medics and said legal proceedings against Bahrain’s doctors and nurses were a “travesty of justice.”
“These are simply ludicrous charges against civilian professionals who were working to save lives,” said Philip Luther of Amnesty International.
Hundreds of activists have been imprisoned since March, when Bahrain’s rulers imposed martial law to deal with protests by the country’s Shiite majority demanding greater rights and freedoms.
More than 30 people have been killed since the protests began in February, inspired by Arab uprisings elsewhere.
The Sunni monarchy that rules this strategically important Gulf nation, which is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, responded with a violent crackdown.
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