Bahrain Shiite opposition leader loses appeal against life sentence

Dubai: Bahrain’s supreme court, whose verdicts are final, on Monday upheld a life term for Shiite opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman for spying for Gulf rival Qatar, a judicial source said.
Salman, who headed the Shiite Al-Wefaq group, was convicted in November of “communicating with Qatari officials… to overthrow constitutional order”, a ruling rights groups have called a travesty.
Salman’s aides Ali al-Aswad and Hassan Sultan, who had been sentenced to life in absentia, also lost their right to appeal. Both men are former MPs and currently reside outside of Bahrain.
Qatar has repeatedly denied accusations of conspiring against Bahrain with Salman.
Bahrain and Qatar have been locked in a bitter regional dispute since June 2017, when a Saudi-led boycott of Doha was enforced over allegations it was cosying up to regional arch-rival Iran and supporting radical Islamist groups.
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates banned their citizens from travel to Qatar.