The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) condemns the death sentence recently issued by the Court of Cassation for the detainees Mohammed Ramadhan and Hussein Moosa, accused of killing a policeman. According to the testimonies of the families of both victims, the court’s ruling is based on forced confessions, extracted under torture.
The Court of Cassation upheld the death sentences this morning, 13 July 2020, after the judgment of a Criminal Court in 2014. According to the sequence of the case in Bahraini courts, after the first death sentence in 2014, the Court of Cassation confirmed the two sentences in November 2015. The Cassation Court dropped the death sentences in 2018, relying on a medical report confirming that Moossa was tortured to force him to confess. In a blatant violation of human rights, the Appeals Court returned to remove this evidence in January 2020.
The two victims testified that they had been tortured repeatedly to force them to confess, and Ramadhan refused to sign the confessions, but they were subjected to torture and the threat of sexual assault during interrogation so they had to sign.
Based on the above, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) calls on the Bahraini authorities to drop the death sentences and abolish the death penalty.
BCHR also calls on the international community and the allies of the authority in Bahrain, led by the United States and Europe, to pressure the Bahraini government to:
- Abolish the death penalty completely;
- Investigate the torture endured by Moosa and Ramadhan, and re-try them within the standards of a fair trial.