A Bahraini court on Thursday acquitted three senior leaders of the country's main opposition group of spying for Qatar, a rare win for opposition figures who say they have been targeted by prosecutors for their political views.

In November, the public prosecutor accused Sheikh Ali Salman, opposition al-Wefaq group secretary general, and Sheikh Hassan Sultan, a former member of the Bahraini parliament for al-Wefaq, of conspiring with Qatari officials to carry out "hostile acts" in the kingdom.

The High Criminal Court acquitted them along with a third senior al-Wefaq member, Ali Alaswad, said Public Prosecutor Osama al-Oufi, cited by the state BNA news agency. Sheikh Ali Salman was found not guilty on all charges.

Human rights group Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) hailed the verdict as "the end of a long, flawed trial".

"This case should never have been initiated in the first place," Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, director of advocacy at BIRD, said in a statement. "We hope this ruling opens the way for dialogue and reconciliation."
In Washington, a US State Department spokeswoman welcomed the verdict and called for Salman's release.
"Today's acquittal removes a potential barrier to political reconciliation in Bahrain, and we urge Bahraini prosecutors not to pursue an appeal of the judge's ruling," spokeswoman Heather Nauert said at a news briefing.

His supporters said that Sheikh Ali was asked to mediate between Qatar and Bahrain in 2011 following tensions between the two countries.

He was charged in November 2017 of working with Qatar against the Manama regime, with Bahrain also accusing Doha of attempting to overthrow the government.

Qatar and Sheikh Ali have denied the allegations.

Bahrain has had a febrile political environment in recent years. It was the only Gulf country to experience serious unrest during the "Arab Spring" wave of popular revolts in 2011, and the opposition has since accused the authorities of using harsh tactics in a crackdown.

Since Bahraini authorities crushed street protests in 2011, demonstrators have clashed frequently with security forces, which have been targeted by several bomb attacks.

BIRD said Sultan and Alaswad were tried in absentia.

Al-Wefaq, headed by Ali Salman, was the largest bloc in parliament before the 2011 protests.

All its members resigned their seats and the group was later dissolved by court order in 2016.

Salman is already serving a four-year prison sentence for inciting hatred and insulting the interior ministry, after he was arrested in 2015.

"The public prosecutor used secret witnesses and a video from a Bahraini television channel which experts described as edited and not complete," Alaswad told Reuters by phone.

Alaswad is a former member of Bahrain's parliament for al-Wefaq who resigned in response to the crackdown against the kingdom's opposition. He has lived in London since 2011.

Bahrain has frequently accused Iran of fomenting unrest. Along with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, it broke diplomatic and trade ties last year with Qatar, which those countries accuse of supporting militants and cosying up to Iran. Doha denies the charges.

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