Bahrain Opposition Activists Tell Court of 'Torture'

Three leading Bahraini opposition activists, facing up to life in jail on charges of plotting to overthrow the monarchy, told their trial on Tuesday of how they were tortured in custody, their lawyers said.

The three - Shiite clerics Abduljalil Muqdad and Saeed Mirza Mahroos, and the Sunni head of the secular Waed group, Ibrahim Sharif - all demanded that they be freed.

"They all complained of torture during detention," said a member of the defense team, requesting not to be identified.

Sharif gave a lengthy account of the torture he said he endured along with other detainees after he was arrested on March 17 last year, in the wake of a deadly crackdown on Shiite-led pro-democracy protests.

"We were made to stand in a line, blindfolded. I had to go through a complete body search after they stripped us naked," he told the court, according to Radhi al-Mosawi, his deputy for political affairs at Waed, who tweeted Sharif's account on Twitter.

Sharif told the court that the torture "continued for weeks... including beating, kicking," and that masked men spat at him and insulted and humiliated him, Mosawi tweeted.

The three are part of a group of 13 activists who are being retried in a civil court after they were convicted, along with seven others who remain at large, of plotting to topple the Sunni ruling family.

Another defendant was acquitted.

The prosecution has dropped charges "related to the freedom of expression," for saying things that were considered illegal in the past, the defense lawyers said.

Also on trial is activist Abdulhadi Khawaja who ended a 110-day hunger strike last week. He did not appear in court.

In June last year, a specially formed tribunal handed down lengthy jail terms against the 21 mostly Shiite activists after convicting them of plotting to overthrow the regime.

Ten months later, Bahrain's highest appeals court ordered a retrial.

Bahrain came under strong criticism from international human rights organizations over last year's crackdown on the Shiite-led protests.

An international panel commissioned by King Hamad to probe the government's clampdown found out that excessive force and torture had been used against protesters and detainees.