Outside Court
– The court areas was surrounded with large number of riot police, including police women.
– Several Human Rights activists were not allowed to enter the court, among them:
• Nabeel Rajab representative of Human Rights Watch,
• Naji Ali Representative of the Arabic European Center for Human Rights,
• Ghada Jamsheer a Bahraini feminist activist.
-The families and supporters of the detainees were prevented from gathering outside the court. Some were not even allowed to step out of their cars as in the case of the opposition activist AbdulWahab Hussain.
Outside Court
– The court areas was surrounded with large number of riot police, including police women.
– Several Human Rights activists were not allowed to enter the court, among them:
• Nabeel Rajab representative of Human Rights Watch,
• Naji Ali Representative of the Arabic European Center for Human Rights,
• Ghada Jamsheer a Bahraini feminist activist.
-The families and supporters of the detainees were prevented from gathering outside the court. Some were not even allowed to step out of their cars as in the case of the opposition activist AbdulWahab Hussain.
(as a note: For the last three months all methods of peaceful protest by the families of detained activists were prevented by the authority)
– Only one member of each detainee’s family was allowed inside the court room.
– Some journalist (including the chief editor of Alwasat newspaper Mansoor Aljamri) were allowed to enter the court but were told not to publish anything about the trial as the press ban on the case is still in effect.
– Again Bahrain TV podcast the detainees pictures handcuff as they enter the court room repeating the words the “terror network”.
Inside Court
The detainees appeared with shaved heads.
Trial Started. The judge asked the lawyers about their representation matter and which ones should represent whom of the defendants but they insisted on their right to the representation of all defendants as a whole and not individually.
Lawyers asked the court to meet with the accused in private for a short time before starting the trial session, and they spoke about the general prosecution violation of the law based on several points:
1 – Not allowing the lawyers to meet with the defendants pursuant to the order of the court where visits were stalled for almost 10 consecutive days. The general prosecution disrupted the decisions of the court and the lawyers were not able to meet with the defendants to represent them in a legal manner.
2 – The defendants were tortured again and they were sent back to the solitary confinement, despite the request to change the detention center of the accused from the prisons of the national Security prison to other less severe on the defendants.
However, the prosecutor objected to their request, saying that general prosecution has helped as much as possible to secure a meeting between the lawyers and the defendants and have submitted documents, also claimed that the meeting could be held with defendants daily if that was the order of the court.
Lawyer Mrs Jaleela Al-Sayed Stressed on the disregard of the rights of detainees by the general prosecution and subjecting them to torture again, and procrastination in granting visits, and dissemination of their photos in the media and holding a campaign that condemns them even before presenting them to the court, with the authorization of the general prosecution and she asked what justice should these defendants expect from such court.
She asked to re-investigate the case with the exclusion of all investigations conducted by the general prosecution and the National Security Apparatus, and to re- investigate the charge to change the description of “terrorist network”, and to arrange for examination of the injuries on the bodies of the defendants by an independent medical committee and not the public coroner.
Moreover, the lawyers objected on the credibility of the investigations which were held without the presence of the lawyers, and on the fact that the general prosecutor didn’t record the defendants’ injuries as a mark of torture during the investigation.
( The court after assessing the lawyers request to meet with the defendants in private before starting the hearing, refused their request on the bases that the court gave the order to meet with them in the last hearing ).
Lawyers requested the court to investigate the veracity of the torture allegations and to listen to the defendants and allow them to talk about what they have suffered and still suffering from as the entire case is based on their confessions which they seem to be coerced to make. Lawyers presented names of some defendants who still have visible marks of torture on their bodies but the court refused to allow them to talk or to look at those marks, citing the previous chance they had to speak up.
The Lawyers refused referring the defendants to the forensic examiner and asked for independent medical committee justifying their request with the dependency of coroner to the general prosecution. The Lawyers said that the defendants had told them that the coroner didn’t even leave his desk and had never done a physical examination on them that can allow him to write a reliable report about their injuries.
Regardless of all that, the court started asking the lawyers if they have read the case’s document and if they have written their defence memos but the lawyers said that all what they were able to have was one copy of a large file and they are nearly 22 lawyers and they need some time to debate and make the defence ready so the court ordered to give each lawyer a copy and the lawyers asked the court to answer to their other requests in front of the defendants and their families.
General prosecution objected to the requests of the lawyers based on the following :
1- The General prosecution objected to the request to reinvestigate the case as the court does that automatically in balancing the elements of the case and that the court is the final investigator and the face of truth .
2- And about the dependency of the public forensic examiner to the public prosecutor said that the coroner is the owner of jurisdiction and he has knowledge of the injuries of the defendants, which is not available to a general doctor.
3- It also denied the violation of law and not recording the injuries of the defendants, then it demonstrated an example in the page 55 of the records of investigations, where injuries were recorded for mentioned defendant in the presence of his lawyer Mohammed Ahmed, but the lawyer said then that despite proof of the record and the visible injuries on the body of the accused, the forensic examiner denied the existence of any injuries! The lawyer said that such paradoxes are questioning the credibility of the forensic examiner. Then the prosecution reiterated its lack of competence in verifying injuries and that its role is limited to mentioning its existence no more.
At the end, the lawyers talked about the violation of international law and treaties and conventions signed by Bahrain by not letting them meet their clients.
Court session postponed to 25Nov and judge reject all requests of the defence
Photos of the marks of torture on the bodies of the detainees
Interview with Lawyer Jalila Al-Sayed after the trial session [English]