Manama, Asharq Al-Awsat—A higher criminal court in Bahrain has sentenced five nationals to life in prison and stripped 56 people of their nationality on charges of forming a terrorist cell, the state-owned Bahrain News Agency (BNA) said on Thursday.

Bahrain’s Public Prosecution said the defendants were found guilty of “setting up, in the period from 2012 to December 2013, an illegal group… attacking policemen, targeting vital sites and security locations, including an embassy, sparking chaos and fomenting seditions.”

Almost half of the convicts were sentenced in absentia.

Sentences ranged from three years to life in prison and are part of a case involving a total of 61 suspects. Five defendants were acquitted.

A Bahraini judicial source told Asharq Al-Awsat that most of the convicts are members of the Shirazi movement, a militant Shi’ite group with links to Iran.

Six were fined 10,000 Bahraini dinars (26,500 US dollars), with the rest ordered to pay 500 dinars each.

In May, Riyadh said it seized at the entrance of King Fahd Causeway, which connects Saudi Arabia with Bahrain, a vehicle carrying 30 Kilograms worth of RDX paste, a highly explosive material, as it was trying to enter Saudi Arabia.