Manama — Bahrain's top military court sentenced six men to death on Monday after convicting them of charges including plotting to assassinate the Gulf state's armed forces chief, state media reported.



Bahrain News Agency said that one of them was a serving soldier before his arrest and that all six were also stripped of their citizenship.



The court sentenced seven other defendants to seven-year jail terms and deprived them too of their citizenship. Five men were acquitted.



Only 10 of the defendants are in custody, BNA said. The other eight are on the run — either inside Bahrain or in Iran or Iraq.



The defendants were accused of the formation of a terrorist cell, attempting to assassinate the BDF Commander-in-Chief and committing other terrorist crimes.



The court convicted and sentenced the six defendants to capital punishment, 15 years in jail and the revocation of their Bahraini nationality.



They are Mubarak Adel Mubarak Mahanna (soldier), Fadhel Al Sayed Abbas Hassan Radhi, Sayed Alawi Hussain Alawi Hussain, Mohammed Abdulhassan Ahmed Al Metghawi, Murtada Majeed Ramadan Alawi (Al Sindi) and Habeeb Abdullah Hassan Ali (Al Jamri).



The court also convicted and sentenced seven defendants to seven years in jail and stripped them of their Bahraini nationality.



They are Mohammed Abdulhassan Saleh Al Shehabi, Mohammed Abdulwahid Mohammed Al Najjar, Hussain Mohammed Ahmed Shehab, Mohammed Yousef Marhoon Al Ajmi, Hussain Ali Mohsen Baddaw, Sayed Mohammed Qassim Mohammed and Ali Jaffar Hassan Al Rayes.



The court acquitted five defendants: Ali Ahmed Khalifa Salman (Al Karbabadi), Hussain Essam Hussain Al Durazi, Muntazhir Fawzi Abdulkareem Mahdi, Rami Ahmed Ali Al Aryash and Mohamed Abdullah Ebrahim Abbas.



All the judicial sureties were granted by the Military Judiciary in compliance with the 2002 Criminal Procedures Law and the 2002 Military Judiciary Law, including access to defense lawyers.



The defendants have the right to challenge the ruling of the court of first instance at the Military Appeals High Court and the Military Court of Cassation according to the provisions of the law.



Representatives of human rights institutions and societies and media and several relatives of the defendants attended the court session. — Agencies