Bahrain's High Criminal Court sentenced three unnamed defendants to life imprisonment on charges of attempting to murder policemen with an improvised bomb, state news agency BNA reported on Thursday.

Prosecutors had accused the suspects of luring police near to where they had placed an explosive device in al-Dair village, north of the capital Manama, on Dec. 29, 2014. Police noticed the device and were able to defuse it, BNA said.

A Bahraini court last year sentenced two Shia men to death and handed a life sentence to a third after they were convicted of killing a policeman in a separate bombing in al-Dair.

Home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, Bahrain was swept by protests during the 2011 "Arab Spring" uprisings in which the country's majority Shia demanded political reforms. The Sunni government denies accusations that it discriminates against Shia.