On 4 November 2018, the Bahraini Appeal Court sentenced opposition leader and prisoner of conscience, Sheikh Ali Salman, to life imprisonment. The court overturned an earlier acquittal, and convicted him and two others of communicating sensitive security information to Qatar.
On 4 November 2018, the High Criminal Court of Appeal in Manama, Bahrain’s capital, sentenced Sheikh Ali Salman, the Secretary General of al-Wefaq National Islamic Society (al-Wefaq), Bahrain’s main opposition party, to life imprisonment. He was convicted with two others of “exchanging intelligence information with a foreign country [Qatar] and with those serving its interests to carry out hostile acts against Bahrain....
The two other men, Ali al-Aswad, a former al-Wefaq Member of Parliament, and Sheikh Hassan Sultan, a party member whose nationality was revoked in January 2015, were tried in abstentia.
Sheikh Ali Salman is held in Jaw Prison, south of Manama. He was due for release at the end of December, having served his four-year prison sentence in another case relating to his peaceful speeches.
