Rajab loses final appeal against jail term
He was convicted of insulting the state through false and malicious news
Dubai - Bahrain’s supreme court, whose verdicts are final, Monday upheld a five-year jail term against activist Nabeel Rajab for writing tweets deemed offensive to the state, a judicial source said.
Rajab, who is already serving a two-year term in another case, was first handed the sentence in February by a lower court and an appeals court confirmed it in June.
The supreme court’s verdicts are final and can not be challenged.
Rajab was convicted of insulting the state by “deliberately disseminating” false and malicious news on social media.
He was also convicted of criticising the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen and publicly offending a foreign country.
The court convicted him of endangering Bahrain’s military operations in Yemen. Manama is part of the Saudi-led coalition that has been fighting the Iran-aligned Al Houthi militia since March 2015.
In January this year, the same court upheld a two-year imprisonment against Rajab after convicting him of press statements critical of the government.