DUBAI: A Bahraini court yesterday jailed three Shia Muslims for 10 years each after convicting them of attempting to kill police officers during anti-government protests, lawyers said.

The trio, Jaafar Ali, Hussain Mansur and Mustafa Abdulkarim, had been charged with attempting to kill three policemen “with premeditation” on February 16, in the Shia village of Karzakan, southwest of Manama.

The public prosecution had also accused the men of “possessing homemade shotguns, as well as employing violence against police, and participating in an unauthorised protest.”

They opened fire on police as security forces were dispersing a protest in the Shia village, the prosecution said.

Bahrain, ruled by the Sunni Al Khalifa dynasty, was rocked by Shia-led demonstrations in February and March 2011.

Home to the US Fifth Fleet and strategically situated across the Gulf from Iran, Bahrain still sees sporadic Shia-led demonstrations, mostly outside the capital Manama.

According to the International Federation for Human Rights, around 80 people have been killed in Bahrain since the violence first broke out in 2011.

AFP