Bahrain top court rejects Nabeel Rajab’s appeal in ‘insult’ case

Bahrain's top court has rejected a final appeal by a prominent activist who was imprisoned for criticizing Saudi Arabia's air strikes in Yemen and accusing Bahrain’s prison authorities of torture.

The verdict on Monday upheld a five-year prison sentence handed to Nabeel Rajab in February, according to a lawyer and a judicial source.

Bahrain, where a Sunni Muslim royal family rules over a Shi’ite-majority population, has kept a lid on dissent since the Shi’ite opposition staged a failed uprising in 2011. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states sent in troops to help crush that unrest.

Rajab, a leading figure in the 2011 pro-democracy protests, was sentenced for comments he made online accusing Bahraini authorities of prison abuse and criticizing Saudi Arabia's role in the war in Yemen.

He was already serving a two-year term over a news interview in which he said Bahrain tortured political prisoners.

"The Court of Cassation rejected the appeal and upheld the sentence of five years in prison against Nabeel Rajab for his tweets," his lawyer, Mohamed Al Jishi, told agencies.

The convictions were for "spreading false news and rumors in time of war", "insulting foreign countries" and "insulting publicly the interior ministry" in comments posted on Twitter, a court document showed.

One charge related to a social media post on March 26, 2015, the day that Saudi Arabia launched an intervention in the Yemeni civil war.

The post criticized wars that "bring hatred, destruction, and horrors".

Rajab is also serving a second two-year term in a separate case.

International rights groups denounced the ruling and the United States has expressed concern about Rajab's case.

Bahrain, which is home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, has closed the main opposition groups, barred their members from running in elections and prosecuted scores of people, many described by human rights groups as activists, in mass trials.