A court in Bahrain has sentenced 13 Shia protesters to life imprisonment as the ruling Al Khalifah regime presses ahead with its heavy-handed clampdown on political dissidents and pro-democracy campaigners in the Gulf kingdom.
On Tuesday, Bahrain's Fourth High Criminal Court found the defendants were foun guilty over alleged “terror crimes”
The court also revoked the citizenship of eleven of the convicts, and ordered seven of them to pay a fine of 700,000 dinars ($1.857 million) altogether.
Two other dissidents, among them an Asian national, were sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Thousands of Shia protesters have held demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis ever since a popular uprising began in the country in mid-February 2011.
