TEHRAN – Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi on Wednesday urged the Bahraini rulers to end their cruel verdicts against the protesters and instead base their security on confidence building.

It came after a Bahraini court handed down prison sentences to 139 activists and stripped almost all of them of their nationality in a mass trial, which was quickly denounced by rights groups as a tool of repression in the hands of the ruling Al Khalifah regime against dissidents.

It also charged the defendants with being linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

Mousavi also denounced the verdict’s claims against Iran as “baseless accusations.”

MH/PA