April 12, 2011
DUBAI (AFP) — One Bahraini and two Iranians are on trial in Bahrain on charges of spying for Iran, which the kingdom has accused of meddling in its internal affairs, the official BNA news said on Tuesday.
The three are accused of providing military and economic information to the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards between 2002 and April 2010, with “the intention of harming the national interests of the country,” BNA said.
The court has adjourned the case until April 20, it said. It did not say when the prosecution of the three began.
The case comes at a time of heightened tension between Iran and Bahrain, with the kingdom accusing the Islamic republic of supporting a mid-February to mid-March Shiite-led pro-democracy uprising there.
Tehran sharply criticised the March intervention of a Saudi-led Gulf force in Bahrain, which freed the Sunni rulers of the Shiite-majority state to crush the protest movement.
The Gulf emirate of Kuwait has also put several people on trial on charges of spying for Iran. A court there on March 29 condemned two Iranians and a Kuwaiti national to death after convicting them of belonging to an Iranian spy ring.