DUBAI: Bahrain has jailed nine Shiites, including a minor and a relative of a prominent London-based activist, on charges of throwing petrol bombs at police, a judicial source and activists said yesterday.

The kingdom's Sunni rulers have cracked down heavily on all displays of dissent ever since they bloodily suppressed mass protests led by the Shiite majority in 2011 for a constitutional minority with an elected prime minister.

The court sentenced eight defendants to seven years in prison on Monday after convicting them of attacking a police patrol with Molotov cocktails in the southern village of Aley, the judicial source said. The ninth, a minor, was sentenced to three years.

The court transcript did not give the names of any of the defendants. But the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy named one of them as Sayed Nizar Alwadaei, 19, a relative of its London-based head of advocacy, Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei.- AFP