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Bahrain jails six Shiite Muslim arsonists

MANAMA: Six persons were jailed for up to five years and ordered to pay 43,000 dollars in damages for an arson attack during anti-government unrest in Bahrain, a newspaper said here Sunday.

The state security court sentenced two of them to five years and the four others to three years in prison after finding them guilty of torching an electricity substation in April last year, the Gulf Daily News said.

The six, who according to the newspaper confessed to their crimes, were also ordered to pay 16,000 Bahraini dinars (43,000 dollars) in damages.

Those sentenced to five years in prison were identified as Fadhef Ali Abdul al-Hussein Thabit, 30, and Abdulnabi Abdulaziz al-Adraj, 23, both employed. The four others were identified as Abdul Redha Abdul Hussein Isa, a 23-year-old worker, and students Mohammad Salman Ahmad Thabit, 18, Fadhel Abdulrasool Radhi Maatooq, 20, and Tayseer Mohammad Mohsin al-Eleiwait, 19.

Unrest erupted in this Gulf Arab archipelago in December 1994 after the mainly Sunni authorities arrested a Shiite Moslem cleric who led demands for the restoration of parliament suspended in 1975.-APP