Defense Lawyers Reveal Official Document Proving Death Before Alleged Murder Incident
Individuals Accused of Burning a Police Car and Killing a Police Man are Exposed to Cruel and Inhuman Treatment
8 October 2008
Defense Lawyers Reveal Official Document Proving Death Before Alleged Murder Incident
Individuals Accused of Burning a Police Car and Killing a Police Man are Exposed to Cruel and Inhuman Treatment
8 October 2008
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights is concerned and has doubts about the case that the First Criminal Court, chaired by member of a ruling family Judge Sheikh Mohammed Al-Khalifa, has looking into since last April and which was filed by the Ministry of Interior against a group of youth from Karzakan area. The Ministry of Interior’s report stated that “a group of individuals targeted a police car affiliated to the ministry by using a Molotov cocktails and killed a policeman – of Asian nationality – and burnt the entire car, and injured the rest of the car members with minor injuries”. However, Mr. Bakhsh, the deceased policeman’s grandfather, stated to the press that his grandson was attacked with sharp tools and was beaten severely after being taken out of the car, and that he had serious injuries in the head and shoulder, as blood was seen coming out of his ears and nose when his corpse was being washed. This has raised suspicion in the alleged burning incident.
According to the Bahrain Center for Human Right’s information, the case’s defendants are known in their society to be activists in human rights committees concerned with various demands, and they organized a public debates, symposiums and protests about political and economic rights.
The defendants stated to the judge in several court hearings that they were being exposed to cruel and inhumane treatment during the interrogations of the case or while they were being held in the detention centers. These torture claims were verified by the defendants’ families to the local press. The defendants also told the judge the names of the people responsible for torturing them in the detention centers.
In the court hearing which was held on 6 October 2006, the defense lawyers disclosed an official document released by the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Justice regarding the deceased inheritance – Majid Asghar Ali – CPR no. 811111717, the former employee in the Ministry of Interior number 15316. The official document, and it is in the form of a letter, is from Mr. Khalid Ali Mohammed Al-Manae – Manager of the Department of Financial and Administrative Affairs at the Ministry of Interior – numbered AE/AM/5-14/127 (أع/أم/5-14/127 ) dated 25 May 2008 and directed to the Director of the Department of Courts at the Ministry of Justice, an attachment of a cheque number 078687 issued by the Ministry of Interior and dated 13 December 2007 and which is final leave entitlements of the deceased – Majid Ali Asghar – of a value of around 1060 B.D.
According to the lawsuit no. 1/2008/435, those accused of killing a policeman and burning the car and they are 19 defendants, were accused of instigating this attack on the 9th of April 2008 which proves that the policeman died or was killed before the incidents several months before the mentioned incident took place.
The Bahraini Ministry of Interior stated in a press conference held after the court hearing and the presentation of the document that, “The Ministry discovered a misprint in the document which is the policeman’s date of death, as the date that was inserted accidentally in the document and is the date of death of another policeman”.
Nabeel Rajab, President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, stated in a comment about this document that, “The defense lawyers raised suspicions regarding the credibility of this case, which was clouded with uncertainty since the beginning. This is due to the deceased’s grandfather’s statements to the Bahraini press, the eye-witnesses account dismissing the official story, up until the surfacing of this official document that was released by the defense.”
Rajab added, “The Ministry of Interior should stop practicing torture to extract forced and not true confessions just to maintain a good image before the public opinion, and it should initiate an urgent investigations in those claims”.
It is worth noting that the Special Security Forces made up of foreign forces used excessive force against the defendants and their families inside the court in the previous hearing, which led to the falling of some of the defendants to the ground.
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights asks the concerned parties to urge the authorities in Bahrain to:
• Create an unbiased committee, which includes civil society institutions, to look into the document issued by the Ministry of Interior.
• Investigate the defendants’ claims of being exposed to cruel and inhuman treatment.
• To end the arbitrary detention, torture, inhuman treatment and unfair trials and its use as a tool to suppress the practice of the most basic of peoples rights and peaceful struggle.
• Reform the Judiciary, Public Prosecution and Penal Laws in order to guarantee fair trial