13 May 2010
In a political sentence issued by the Supreme Appeal Court on 28 March 2010[i][1] to convict 19 defendants of killing a policeman from the Special Forces, the Pakistani Majid Asghar Ali, and imprisoning them all for 3 years, after annulling the acquittal issued in their favour on 13 October 2009.
13 May 2010
In a political sentence issued by the Supreme Appeal Court on 28 March 2010[i][1] to convict 19 defendants of killing a policeman from the Special Forces, the Pakistani Majid Asghar Ali, and imprisoning them all for 3 years, after annulling the acquittal issued in their favour on 13 October 2009.
All of the following: Kumail Ahmed Ali Mohammed, Fadhel Abbas Ali Ahmed, Mohammed Maki Ali Mansoor, Hussein Abbas Ali Ahmed, Fadhel Abbas Mohammed Ashoor, Abdullah Juma Abdullah Ali, Sayed Ahmed Hameed Adnan Alawi, Sayed Sadiq Ibrahim Juma, Sadiq Jawad Ahmed Jawad, Hussein Ali Mohammed Dhaif, Habib Mohammed Ashoor, Ibrahim Saleh Jaffar, Hussein Abdul-Kareem Maki Eid, Sayed Omran Hameed Adnan Alawi, Hussein Mohammed Ali Khatam, Habib Ahmed Habib Ashoor, Qassim Mohammed Khalil Ibrahim, Sayed Jaway Hameed Adnan Alawi and Hamed Ibrahim Al-Fardan were arrested at different periods after the Ministry of Interior announced in the newspapers on 10 April 2008, that a security patrol has been attacked with stones and Molotov cocktails by masked people, and which resulted in the death of one the patrol men and the injury of the others on 9 April 2008 in the area of Karzakan. On the next day, the same source announces that it was able to arrest the perpetrators. This was followed by a visit by the Prime Minister, Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa, to the Ministry of Interior where he met the Minister of Interior, the head of the National Security Apparatus and senior leading officials in the country, and declares that there will be no tolerance for the offenders. The Public Prosecution announces that the offenders were arrested according to the findings of the inquiries of the General Directorate of Investigations and that it had initiated their interrogation and declared that they confessed committing the crime. Quickly after that, the Bahrain News Agency and the Department of Foreign Media at the Ministry of Information, and the newspapers allied with the authority released the news and distributed it to all news agencies and world newspapers, and along with that suggested to those media institutes that the crime was committed by a group of youth from one of the Shiite villages. However, after the arrest that lasted more than 17 months, and under cruel detention conditions suffered by the defendants and wide violations and systematic torture practiced against them, and arbitrary detention in solitary cells for extended periods, and torture that was installed to the sentence, the High Criminal Court issued its ruling of acquitting all the defendants of killing the security man and which is a ruling that was later appealed by the Public Prosecution.
According to the sentence, the court was not satisfied with the prosecution witnesses statements – who are members of the Special Forces – and who did not show how the injury which had led to the death of the policeman had happened, especially that the forensic report who inspected the victim proved that the wounds on the victim’s body was unrelated to the death, and that the chief medical examiner had said the cause of the injury was most likely due to the victim’s fall out of the car after it had flipped over and his head hit the ground. Moreover, there is no physical evidence that proves the involvement of any of the defendants in that crime. The forensic report proved that the confessions made by the 19 defendants were extracted under torture and harsh detention conditions. The court ended its ruling by it not being assured that the incident, in place of the accusation, can be proven against any of the defendants, which is something that requires releasing them according to article 255 of the Code of Criminal Procedures[ii][2], which means they are not guilty of any of the charges against them.
Defendants Convicted Retroactively
The earlier acquittal sentence placed many of the ones accounted for the authority or the ones close to them in a great embarrassment, and some of their reactions even seemed troubled or rejecting the acquittal sentence due its rush, initially, in announcing its opinion and being influenced by the misleading media campaign carried out by the authority and the fake scare of the security apparatuses in the arbitrary prior conviction of the defendants, even before the court instigated the case. The hasty statements of those included apparent incitement against the defendants and a prejudgment, which created a hostile and negative atmosphere towards the defendants and which greatly affected them and their families and their areas of residence. Yet, this campaign contributed in restricting some of the articles of the Penal Code issued with decree no. 15 of 1976, and especially law no. 14 known for the Molotov law which was quickly passed with no review, taking advantage of the negative atmosphere and the charge and incitement accompanying the arrest. As a result of this tense atmosphere created by the authority since day one of arresting the defendants, it launched a violent security campaign against the village of Karzakan and the villages near it, the residents of these areas were collectively punished by using excessive force against them and which led to the injury or arrest of dozens of detainees since the arrest of the defendants and up to this day. In correspondence with this security campaign against the village, there was a press and media scare to incite against the defendants and their areas, or by rallying in a sectarian manner in the Juma Prayers, and a race between the Shura members and the loyal MPs or the societies close to the authority to convict them and seek justice. This campaign had a provocative and hate aggravating nature, and it lacked moral and human standards in most cases.[iii][3]
A few weeks after their first acquittal, the Human Rights Watch issued a report about torture in Bahrain “Torture Resurrected”, and which is a summary of the work of several months of two experts, who carried out an accurate investigation in the torture allegations in Bahrain, and which concluded that torture in the Bahraini prisons is a systematic practice. It indicated that the detainees in the Bahraini prisons faced torture on the hands of the ones detaining them during the interrogation in order to extract confessions from them. This matter was met with a wide reaction from the Bahraini authorities, especially due to the mention of a group of officials[iv][4] in the security apparatuses in this report, and the report’s recommendations to the Bahraini authorities to question those officials regarding the allegations of their involvement in the torture crimes against the defendants, and which is a campaign that ended in convicting the defendants and sentencing them to three years in prison. The head of the team of lawyers, Lawyer Mohammed Al-Tajer appealed the sentence on 26 April 2010.
Criminating Innocents to Acquit the Criminals
The BCHR believes that annulling the acquittal sentence of the defendants and wiping out the entire past ruling, and then convicting and sentencing them to prison is a political call that lacks integrity, impartiality and independence, and was influenced by the report of the Human Rights Watch as a reaction to the recommendations, and in addition to remove all suspicions from those officials, or any possibility of prosecuting them locally or internationally. The conviction also comes as a preempt to the embarrassments that happened to many state officials, as well as those counted for them such as loyal MPs and societies and others, of drawing prior convictions against the defendants and before initiating the case, and away from the principle that the accused is innocent until proven guilty in a fair trial.
Based on the above, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights demands the authorities the following:
1. Release all the ones arrested in this case, and consider all the defendants innocent of the charges against them and to compensate them for all the violations practiced against them;
2. Bring the perpetrators, officials and executors in the torture cases to neutral and impartial trails;
3. Reform the judicial institute, including the Public Prosecution, for it to become more neutral and fair, especially in the cases that have a political and human rights aspect.
References
1. The Salafi Al-Asala Bloc: the criminal act comes as a connected link to the terrorist acts, and the last which was 30 people burning down the farm of Sheikh Abdul-Aziz bin Atyat Allah and destroying its facilities. It is clear that the person behind it is one in all these incidents, and that the security men are targeted. This criminal group wants to weaken them so that Bahrain drowns in violence and chaos. This incident is a betrayal of the homeland and people, and of the values and morals and is a blatant transgression of the human self. How is the forbidden and pure blood being shed in this savage manner?! And how do these terrorists deal with security men as if they are occupation soldiers?! We call on everyone to deal with the security issues in honesty and patriotism, and to call things by their proper names, the defendant who has been charged with a clear charge by the Public Prosecution is not called a detainee as was mentioned by some to mislead the people with these titles, and which is something that makes the ones tampering the security indulge in their transgressions when they find some one to support them with such manipulations.
2. The independent MP, Al-Asoomi (a former secretary in the office of the Prime Minister) – this appalling crime led to the death of a security man, and which is a criminal act that aims in first place at intimidating the safe people, and its perpetrators did not target breaching public order, but yet tampering the social and civil peace and to split the joint national front.
3. Al-Wefaq Islamic Society (opposition which has 17 MPs in the Council of Representatives): what happened of burning the Karzakan car and the killing of an element belonging to the Ministry of Interior contradicts the requirements of political differences which pushes it outside this circle, to a circle of suspicion and mistrust, which could suggest that the person responsible for it is seeking purposes other than political and national work which everyone seeks through political difference, and which does not invoke these rejected and condemned methods.
4. The Charter Society (close to the authority) – we at the Society express our condemnation and denunciation of this vicious assault which killed the citizen policeman Maijd Asghar ali. The National Action Charter Society stresses the danger of resorting to the methods of violence, terrorism and vandalism that are strange to the manners of the people of Bahrain.
5. The MP Abdulrahman BuMajid: we greatly regret what he had heard and saw in the media of grave escalation of insecurity in the country of setting fire to a security patrol, including the ones in it, and which led to the death of one security men who died of his wounds, after a patrol was attacked with Molotov Cocktails.
6. Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry: what happened is considered a blatant transgression of the law, and an unjustified security escalation. These unfortunate events are harmful to the reform process witnessed by the Kingdom of Bahrain and damages the economic development and the business environment and investment… indicating that we all support the words of the Prime Minister that taking lives and attacking properties is a red line that should never be transgressed… the Chamber and the entire commercial and business sector stress the need to stand firm in the face of this indifference and abuse to the security and stability of the country.
7. The Secretary-General of the GCC, Abdulrahman bin Hamad Al-Atya: the committer of these heinous acts targeted the loyal security men and committed a crime in which he betrayed his country and religion and intimidated the secure people and killed an innocent life. Al-Atya expressed his support for all the measures taken by Bahrain to face these criminal and outlaw acts, hailing the efficiency of the security apparatuses… and emphasizing that such acts are met with rejection by the entire GCC, as the security and safety of a country and its people is indivisible.
8. Al-Salafi MP, Al-Saidi (close to the Royal Court) – to what extent do these intend to drag the Bahraini street to… do they want a civil war that starts with a sectarian spark??… Do they want a new Iraq in Bahrain??… If they wanted that and which is something we do not wish for, by God they will not be safe and they will burn with their same fire, be wiser and more rational. We do not want an escalation and we do not want violence, we are trying not to be involved in it, and this is not out of fear or negligence by us, it is out of love to this country an in maintenance of its system and in obedience to the governors in command. These youth have been deceived and they have become criminals and murderers and an instrument of destruction in the eyes of everyone, and this dear country’s achievements have been destroyed and its properties have been damaged, so where are the people of reason and logic and nationalism, where are the lovers of Bahrain.
Al-Saidi said that dragging the policeman from the car and being killed in cold-blood murder with stones… the blood of this poor fellow is hung in the neck of the ones that directed those murderers and terrorists… to become organized murder gangs, yes organized gangs that target each safe citizen in his country… do you accept that oh people of Bahrain? Where are the honorable of the country? Where are the defenders of the country? Have you nothing to say? Didn’t God say in the Holy Koran: ((You are the best nation [as an example] for mankind. You enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong)) Isn’t this the vice? Wake up oh lovers of this country… we are questioned before our God and we are questioned also by our country.
[iv][4] From the criminal investigations: Colonel Yousif Al-Arabi, Major Fahad Al-Fadhala, Major Bassam Al-Miraj, Lieutenant Isa Al-Majali and from the National Security Apparatus Bader Al-Ghaith