Oman court convicts 30 over coup plot
A security court in Muscat, Oman, today convicted 30 Omanis of plotting to overthrow their government and the sole other defendant on trial of a lesser crime, sentencing them to prison terms ranging from one to 20 years in prison.
The defendants include university professors, civil servants, mosque prayer leaders and Islamic scholars. Six of them were sentenced to 20 years, 12 received 10-year terms and 12 others were sentenced to seven years. One person, convicted only on a charge of illegal possession of automatic weapons, was ordered to spend a year in prison.
The 31 to stand trial, ages 30-50, were among as many as 100 suspected extremists arrested across Oman earlier this year, following unconfirmed reports some had planned to attack events at a popular shopping and cultural festival. Officials have said many of those arrested were released.
Chief State Security Justice Hilal Bin Hamad al-Busaiedy, who presided over the trial, said the defendants have the right to appeal to the country’s ruler, Sultan Qaboos, within 30 days of announcing the verdict.
Prosecutors have been demanding the death penalty since the trial began on April 18. During the hearings, authorities reportedly have shown video tapes and photos of weapons caches believed to belong the group.
Information about the arrests and trials of the defendants has been tightly controlled, with the detentions slow to be acknowledged and only a select few senior Omani journalists permitted inside the courtroom. Oman is relatively isolated on the southeastern corner of the Arabian peninsula.
Today’s verdict said the defendants formed an illegal armed network with a central cell to draw up strategies and subsidiaries to handle follow-through and recruitment. The defendants held clandestine meetings and organised military training, using illegally possessed weapons, the verdict said.
The group was funded by members setting aside part of their salaries, it said, adding that public lectures and libraries were sometimes used to promote members’ ideas.
Lawyers have maintained that the defendants are innocent and sought only to spread the teachings of the majority Ibadi sect.
Most of the defendants pleaded innocent, although some have expressed regret during the hearings, requesting clemency from the country’s absolute ruler, Sultan Qaboos.
On Sunday, a group of sympathisers reportedly staged a peaceful protest in central Muscat, expressing their support for the defendants. Such gatherings are banned in the conservative sultanate; the protest was dispersed peacefully.
In 1994, authorities convicted 200 defendants of belonging to a secret, violent group and handed down sentences including prison terms and execution orders. Sultan Qaboos later pardoned them.
Most Omanis are Ibadi, a conservative stream of Islam outside the Sunni and Shiite sects that are dominant elsewhere in the region. Qaboos, who overthrew his father in 1970, has been considered a modernist compared to his conservative religious father.
