Published: 21 September 2006
MANAMA: A British man working as a consultant for the Bahrain government has been deported, after circulating literature alleging irregularities in the run-up to parliamentary elections later this year.
Dr Salah Al Bander, who is also secretary-general of the non-government Gulf Centre for Democratic Development (GCDD), was put on a plane for London, leaving his Bahraini wife.
He was arrested by police at his GCDD office in Seef last Wednesday and questioned by a Public Prosecutor for two hours.
His Bahraini wife of 16 years, GCDD president and National Liberal Thought Society president Layla Rajab, said the police also took her laptop, computer, CDs, papers, invoices and various personal items from their East Riffa home.
Published: 21 September 2006
MANAMA: A British man working as a consultant for the Bahrain government has been deported, after circulating literature alleging irregularities in the run-up to parliamentary elections later this year.
Dr Salah Al Bander, who is also secretary-general of the non-government Gulf Centre for Democratic Development (GCDD), was put on a plane for London, leaving his Bahraini wife.
He was arrested by police at his GCDD office in Seef last Wednesday and questioned by a Public Prosecutor for two hours.
His Bahraini wife of 16 years, GCDD president and National Liberal Thought Society president Layla Rajab, said the police also took her laptop, computer, CDs, papers, invoices and various personal items from their East Riffa home.
Dr Al Bander, aged 52, worked as a strategic planning consultant to the Cabinet Affairs Ministry (a position he had held since October last year) and various private companies, up to his arrest and deportation.
He said a 240-page report was put together by himself and 14 other people from the GCDD, after a six-month investigation into allegations made to them by various political and civil societies.
Dr Al Bander said he submitted the report by hand to Bahraini authorities, to political society heads and the British, German and US embassies, at the beginning of this month.
He said he submitted it to authorities in the US and UK because they have vested interests in Bahrain and to those in Germany because it chairs the European Union.
A photocopying and stationery shop in Gudaibiya, from which copies of the report were being circulated, has been closed for the past two days.
The Keralite copy centre employee has also not been seen since Monday night, said people from neighbouring businesses. The document was available at the copy centre for BD3.500 until Monday night.
© Gulf Daily News
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/story.asp?Article=156365&Sn=BNEW&IssueID=29185
