Bahrain Live Blog

According to Nabeel Rajab's lawyer, Mohammad Aljishi, the Bahraini authorities have said they will keep him detained for seven days.

The trial of a prominent Bahraini activist is to begin on Sunday.

Nabeel Rajab, who heads the non-governmental Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), was arrested at the airport late on Saturday over charges of "participating in illegal assembly and calling others to join," the centre said in a statement.

"Nabeel Rajab arrested by order of public prosecution. All legal procedures are being taken," the interior ministry said on its Twitter account.

Rajab was returning from Lebanon where he met the representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, according to activist Mohammed al-Maskati, who travelled with him.

He was led away by people in plainclothes, Maskati wrote on his Twitter page.

The BCHR said Rajab could face further charges, as he was summoned for interrogation on April 26 accused of "insulting the statutory bodies."

It quoted Rajab as saying earlier that he refused to attend his trial, accusing Bahrain's judiciary system of not being fair.

"Given that Bahrain in essence lacks a judiciary system that is independent and/or fair, and is far from being in line with international standards of a fair trial, I have decided to boycott the trial against myself," he said.

[Source: AFP]

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Four Bahraini policemen were wounded in a "terrorist" attack in a Shiite village, one of them critically, the kingdom's interior ministry said on Saturday.

"Four policemen injured including one critically in a terror blast in Bani Jamra" west of the capital Manama, the ministry said on Twitter, without elaborating.

"The explosion was from a home-made bomb," an official at the ministry's press centre said, adding that the device detonated as members of the security forces passed by.

They had arrived in Bani Jamra before dawn to disperse dozens of protesters, who were blocking roads in the village, the official said.

"An officer, who was seriously wounded in the arm and the abdomen, was hospitalised and has been operated on... and three policemen suffered burns,"he said, adding that an inquiry was under way to find those behind the attack.

The Bahraini authorities have denounced similar incidents in recent weeks, including on April 10, when seven policemen were wounded by a home-made bomb in Akr, south of Manama.